Selfish Quotes - Page 29

• You speak of sacrifice, but it is not my sacrifice I offer. It is yours I ask of you," he went on. "I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you will not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life--whatever its length--happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.

  Cassandra Clare

  Love, Short Life, Heart

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• But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Reality, Firsts, Ethical

  Cheryl Strayed (2013). “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who’s Been There”, p.236, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I pass through many Me's in the course of my day, each one selfish with his time. The Lying-in-Bed me and the Enjoying-the-Hot-Shower Me are particularly selfish. The Late Me loathes the pair of them.

  David Mitchell

  Lying, Bed, Hot

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• Given the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.

  Jessica Valenti

  Children, Thoughtful, Reality

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• We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It's the reason... we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Meaningful, Reality, Fire

  "Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar". Book by Cheryl Strayed, July 10, 2012.

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• Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Determined, Rhett Butler, Helpless

  Margaret Mitchell (2016). “Gone with the Wind”, p.249, Hamilton Books

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• Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands.

  Bram Stoker

  Love Is, Light, Black

  Bram Stoker (2016). “The Jewel of Seven Stars”, p.182, Xist Publishing

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• It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.

  Francis Chan

  Light, Land, Doubt

  Francis Chan, Preston Sprinkle (2014). “The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply”, p.44, David C Cook

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• Today, the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love -- all love -- love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Real, Who I Am, Hands

  Jeanette Winterson (2004). “Lighthousekeeping”, Fourth Estate (GB)

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• I didn’t do anything wrong. All I know is I saw two people struggling to get inside these walls and they couldn’t make it. To ignore that because of some stupid rule seemed selfish, cowardly, and…well, stupid. If you want to throw me in jail for trying to save someone’s life, then go ahead. Next time I promise I’ll point at them and laugh, then go eat some of Frypan’s dinner.

  James Dashner

  Wall, Stupid, Struggle

  "The Maze Runner". Book by James Dashner, October 7, 2009.

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• There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

  John Steinbeck

  Kindness, Mean, Unique

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• I'm not afraid of new things. I'm just afraid of feeling alone even when there's somebody else there. I'm afraid of feeling bad. Maybe that's selfish, but it's the way I feel.

  David Foster Wallace

  Feeling Alone, Feelings, Way

  David Foster Wallace (2014). “Girl With Curious Hair”, p.143, Hachette UK

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• Why do you think people cheat?," I asked. "Because they're bored? Because they can? Because they're selfish and think they're entitled to anything they want? Because they don't think they'll get caught?

  Sarah Mlynowski

  Thinking, People, Bored

  Sarah Mlynowski (2011). “Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done”, p.153, Hachette UK

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• Listen up, Wanda. I know exactly what you don't want to be. But we're human, and we're selfish, and we don't always do the right thing. We aren't going to let you go. Deal with it.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Want, Letting You Go, Deals

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• I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even.

  Veronica Roth

  Mother, Fighting, People

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• But deciding not to have children is a very, very hard decision for a woman to make: the atmosphere is worryingly inconducive to saying, "I choose not to," or "it all sounds a bit vile, tbh." We call these women "selfish" The inference of the word "childless" is negative: one of lack, and loss. We think of nonmothers as rangy lone wolves - rattling around, as dangerous as teenage boys or men. We make women feel that their narrative has ground to a halt in their thirities if they don't "finish things" properly and have children.

  Caitlin Moran

  Mother, Teenage, Children

  "How To Be a Woman". Book by Caitlin Moran, 2011.

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• I thought he'd pick me, I know he has kids, but when it came down to it, I really thought he'd pick me." Tears rolled down her face and her nose ran. She sniffed. "I know I'm selfish" "You're human" "I wanted him to abandon his children

  Anna McPartlin

  Children, Kids, Tears

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• ...because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were.

  Max Brooks

  Growing Up, Kids, Peaceful

  Max Brooks (2006). “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War”, p.336, Broadway Books

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• I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me, so help me, I'll laugh at myself for being an idiot. There's one thing I do know... and that is that I love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we're alike. Bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd. But able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Silly, Love You, Eye

  "Fictional character: Rhett". "Gone with the Wind", 1939.

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• You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.

  Agatha Christie

  People, Done, Way

  Agatha Christie “Annotated The Mysterious Affairs at Styles with English Grammar Exercises: by Agatha Christie (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

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• An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy... If I try self-consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Laughter, Real, Compassion

  "A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals, Book 1)". Book by Madeleine L'Engle (Section 1.10), 1972.

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• But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.

  Sarah Dessen

  Lines, Way, Care

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• I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.

  Neil Gaiman

  Children, Rocks, Important

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• Love isn't one-sided and selfish.It is full and generous and life-altering in the best of ways.Love does not destroy, Gabriel.It creates.

  Sarah MacLean

  Doe, Gabriel, Way

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• I watched as Humphrey Bogart’s character used beans as a metaphor for the relative unimportance in the wider world of his relationship with Ingrid Bergman’s character, and chose logic and decency ahead of his selfish emotional desires. The quandary and resulting decision made for an engrossing film. But this was not what people cried about. They were in love and could not be together. I repeated this statement to myself, trying to force an emotional reaction. I couldn’t. I didn’t care. I had enough problems of my own.

  Graeme Simsion

  Character, Emotional, People

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