Life Changing Events Quotes

Quotes tagged as "life-changing-events" Showing 1-26 of 26
Charles Dickens
“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Neil Gaiman
“Richard wrote a diary entry in his head.

Dear Diary, he began. On Friday I had a job, a fiancée, a home, and a life that made sense. (Well, as much as any life makes sense). Then I found an injured girl bleeding on the pavement, and I tried to be a Good Samaritan. Now I've got no fiancée, no home, no job, and I'm walking around a couple of hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy of a suicidal fruitfly.
Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

Jeannette Walls
“Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.”
Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“There is a club in this world that you do not join knowingly.

One day you are just a member.

It is “The life changing events club.”

The fee to join the club is hurt beyond belief, payable in full, up front for a lifetime membership.

The benefit of the club is a new found perspective on life, and a deep understanding that you may not be happy about your current situation, but you can be happy in your current situation.

The only rule to the club is that you cannot tell anyone that you are a member.

The club does not provide a directory of its members, but when you look into a member’s eye, you can tell that they too are part of the club. Members are allowed to exchange that brief eye contact that says: “I didn’t know.”

Being a member of this club is the last thing that anyone initially wants in their life.

Being a member of this club is the best thing that ever happens to a person in their life, and there is not a person in the club that would ever give up their membership.

If you really look and know what you are looking for you can spot the clubs members; they are the ones that provide a random act of kindness and do something for someone who can never repay them for what they have done. They are the people spreading joy and optimism and lifting people’s spirits even when their own heart has been broken.

I have paid my dues; my lifetime membership arrived today, not by mail, but by a deep inner feeling that I cannot describe.

It is the best club that I never wanted to be part of.

But I am glad that I am a member.”
John Passaro, 6 Minutes Wrestling With Life

Jeannette Walls
“But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.”
Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

Ann Patchett
“That was the way things worked. When you were looking for the big fight, the moment that you thought would knock everything over, nothing much happened at all.”
Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars

Karen M. McManus
“A couple of words is all it'll take to make everything in my life Before and After.”
Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying

Robert Gill Jr.
“There are more benefits to happiness. The power of happiness enables more success in marriages, added friendships, higher incomes, and better work performance. With more friends, happy people have a superior support system. They have an easier time navigating through life because their optimistic outlook eases pain, sadness, and grief. They smile more and engage in more in-depth and more meaningful conversations.”
Robert Gill Jr., Happiness Power: How to Unleash Your Power and Live a More Joyful Life

Meša Selimović
“Znao sam da je sve moje dovedeno u pitanje. Sve — to je veoma neodređeno, ali i veoma stvarno. To je izgubljenost i bespuće, to je ispadanje sa životne staze a druga ne postoji, to je osjećanje užasa bez imena, zbog praznine i gluhog prostora što bi se mogao stvoriti oko tebe.”
Meša Selimović, Death and the Dervish

Laura Kaye
“Sometimes you plodded through life with nothing changing from one month to the next no matter how much you yearned for a revolution to erupt beneath your feet. And sometimes your whole world imploded and rebuilt itself in a matter of seconds.”
Laura Kaye, Hard as It Gets

“In your life you will meet shooting stars. You will see them, make your wish and see them disappear.”
Nahiar Ozar

“Sometimes we need to be destroyed by a situation, before we understand how bad it was for us.”
Karon Waddell

“And then I got to thinking about how, if someone met me for the first time now, they would need to know about Uncle Ed and my parents in order to understand me. Sometimes it feels as though I’m defined by all the people I’ve lost , like one of those negative-space pictures, where what’s not there is just as important as what is.”
Claire Wong, The Runaway

Tom Perrotta
“Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her.”
Tom Perrotta, Mrs. Fletcher

Tracey Garvis Graves
“Oh God T.J., I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking" Nothing like going on about having kids in front of someone whose fertility had been exchanged for survival.”
Tracey Garvis-Graves

Tracey Garvis Graves
“T.J. seemed older than seventeen. Reserved almost. Maybe facing serious health problems eliminated some of the immature behavior that presented itself when you had nothing more to worry about than getting your driver's license, cutting class, or breaking curfew.”
Tracey Garvis-Graves

Jan-Philipp Sendker
“And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist. A moment that transforms us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next. The moment when a lover confesses that there's someone else and that he's leaving. Or the day we bury a father or mother or best friend. Or the moment when the doctor informs us of a malignant brain tumor.

Or are such moments merely the dramatic conclusions of lengthier processes, conclusions we could have foreseen if we had only read the portents rather than disregarding them?

And if these turning points are real, are we aware of them as they happen, or do we recognize the discontinuity only much later, in hindsight?”
Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

“The thing about perspective-changing events is that they usually don't announce themselves as such.”
Andrea Goeglein

Mimi Novic
“It is not how long we spend with someone that matters.
It's the effect of that encounter that makes the difference.”
Mimi Novic, Guidebook To Your Heart

“Life showed my her back and I touched its ass”
Xevi Castellà Tubert

“La vida me dio la espalda y yo le toque el culo”
Xevi Castellà Tubert

Elizabeth Gilbert
“Avea obiceiurile, tabieturile si raspunderile ei. Avea demnitatea ei. Intr-adevar, era cam ca o carte care se deschisese la aceeasi pagina in fiecare zi, timp de treizeci de ani in sir - dar nu fusese o pagina prea rea. Se simtise vesela. Multumita. Oricine ar fi spus ca avusese o viata buna. Acum nu s-ar mai fi putut intoarce la viata aceea cu nici un chip.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things

“I could still turn back before I pass the last houses and really have to commit to this.”
Claire Wong, The Runaway

Shannon Messenger
“I have a feeling the difference between success and and catastrophe rides on my ability to guess the right one.”
Shannon Messenger, Let the Sky Fall

Kimi Cunningham Grant
“This is the moment Emlyn will play over and over in her mind. The moment where her life swivels from its course and heads in an entirely different direction. Life is full of these moments. Little points like those connect-the-dots activities from grade school. Each speck building on the next to form the shape of a person's story.”
Kimi Cunningham Grant, The Nature of Disappearing