Michael Sorensen > Michael's Quotes

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”
― Colette

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
― Sharon Salzberg

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
― C.S. Lewis

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Anger is like flowing water; there's nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. Hate is like stagnant water; anger that you denied yourself the freedom to feel, the freedom to flow; water that you gathered in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that is your hate. On flowing water travels little paper boats; paper boats of forgiveness. Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. Be human.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."

Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“If you can't manage courtesy, try silence.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Just because you start out as one thing, it doesn't mean you can't grow into something else.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“But… all I said was that I was scared."

After what you got to experience? That's smart, kid," I said. "I'm scared, too. Every time something like this happens, it scares me. But being strong doesn't get you through. Being smart does. I've beaten people and things who were stronger than I was, because they didn't use their heads, or because I used what I had better than they did. It isn't about muscle, kiddo, magical or otherwise. It's about your attitude. About your mind."

She nodded slowly and said, "About doing things for the right reasons."

You don't throw down like this just because you're strong enough to do it," I said. "You do it because you don't have much choice. You do it because it's unacceptable to walk away, and still live with yourself later."

She stared at me for a second, and then her eyes widened. "Otherwise, you're using power for the sake of using power."

I nodded. "And power tends to corrupt. It isn't hard to love using it, Molly. You've got to go in with the right attitude or…"

Or the power starts using you," she said. She'd heard the argument before, but this was the first time she said the words slowly, thoughtfully, as if she'd actually understood them, instead of just parroting them back to me. Then she looked up. "That's why you do it. Why you help people. You're using the power for someone other than yourself.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night