100 Life Quotes From Famous Authors That Prove Everyone Has Bad Days
You're never alone, and you'll get through this.
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Inspirational, famous literary quotes about life motivate us. When words from someone so talented can touch your heart, having a bad day becomes easier because you realize you're not alone.
No matter who you are in this world — including those who seem like they’re too great to have any heartache or awful days — we all go through the same things.
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A wonderful cathartic way to cope with bad days is to read inspirational life quotes. Reading can take you to a completely different place where nothing bad could ever happen, or it can take you somewhere you can relate to — except this time, the bad things don’t seem as unmanageable.
And, believe it or not, even when the story is fiction, authors often find their inspiration from experiences they’ve already gone through, which means that bad time you're having, they’ve had it, too. It's motivating when you read a quote about how someone you admire overcame their own hardships.
But more than just writing about these not-so-great feelings and experiences, authors give you advice on how to deal with it, even if you don’t realize it’s advice at first.
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Every negative experience is temporary; and, more than that, there are always good days ahead. You journey might not be 200 pages long, but authors who write about life and love know that these things take time. All you need is a little push to help you on the right path.
100 Best Literary Quotes By Famous Authors To Inspire You
1. “You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.” ―Bill Watterson
2. "Even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there." —Stephen Chbosky
3. "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." —John Steinbeck
4. “Outside the windows the day was bright: golden sunshine, blue sky, pleasant wind... I wanted to punch the happy day in the face, grab it by the hair, and beat it until it told me what the hell it was so happy about.” ―Ilona Andrews
5. “I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hungover and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone.” ―Holly Black
6. "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default." —J.K. Rowling
7. “But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.” ―Charles Darwin
8. "We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." —Ray Bradbury
9. "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." —Maya Angelou
10. “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” —Oscar Wilde
11. “Maybe it’s not about having a beautiful day, but about finding beautiful moments. Maybe a whole day is just too much to ask. I could choose to believe that in every day, in all things, no matter how dark and ugly, there are shards of beauty if I look for them.” ―Anna White
12. “I've had the sort of day that would make St. Francis of Assisi kick babies.” ―Douglas Adams
13. "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." —Dr. Seuss
14. "Everything is hard before it is easy." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
15. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." —Albert Einstein
16. “These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light — the soul's certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.” ―David Foster Wallace
17. "Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose." —C.S. Lewis
18. "It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace." —Chuck Palahniuk
19. "We are all broken, that's how the light gets in." —Ernest Hemingway
20. "Monsters are real, ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win." —Stephen King
21. “We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day.” —Brad Meltzer
22. "It hurt because it mattered." —John Green
23. "Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go." —Herman Hesse
24. "I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain." —Sylvia Plath
25. "Life's not fair; why should I be?" —Margaret Atwood
26. "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." —Henry David Thoreau
27. "Sooner or later even the fastest runners have to stand and fight." —Stephen King
28. "We rise by lifting others." —Robert Ingersoll
29. "I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." —Maya Angelou
30. "Things usually work out in the end." "What if they don't?" "That just means you haven't come to the end yet." —Jeanette Walls
31. “Life is a journey, not a destination.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
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32. "I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival." —Audre Lorde
33. "All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong. Does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost." —J.R.R. Tolkien
34. "There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion." —Edgar Allen Poe
35. "The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness." —John Muir
36. "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears." —Rumi
37. "It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still love it." —Oscar Wilde
38. "To thine own self be true." —William Shakespeare
39. "Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them." —Ayn Rand
40. "Straight roads do not make skillful drivers." —Paula Coelho
41. “And in the end, we were all just humans... drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
42. "To avoid criticism: say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." —Aristotle
43. "Dwell in possibility." —Emily Dickinson
44. "Trust our heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards." —E.E. Cummings
45. "When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails." —H. Jackson Brown Jr.
46. "Have faith, have faith. When you have nothing else have faith." —Francine Rivers
47. "Rock solid became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." —J.K. Rowling
48. "Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start there." —Cheryl Strayed
49. "Laugh loudly, laugh often, and most important, laugh at yourself." —Chelsea Handler
50. "Life is tough my darling, but so are you." —Stephanie Bennett Henry
51. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” —Mark Twain
52. “There's very little in my world that a foot massage and a thin-crust, everything-on-it pizza won't set right.” ―G.A. McKevett
53. “No matter what the day brings and no matter how hard life hits you, if you can breathe, smile and keep moving on! Once you have life, know that God is alive!” ―Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
54. “When you're having what you feel like is a 'bad day' and then someone comes along out of nowhere and extends to you the simplest of kind gestures, you feel it so deeply within your heart.” ―Miya Yamanouchi
55. “So you had a bad day. Kick it aside and be grateful for one less bad day to pass through.” ―Richelle E. Goodrich
56. “Keep calm when things don’t go according to your expectations! Beautiful things always meet friction!” ―Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
57. “Next to the day when I was almost shot by that arrow, the worst day of my life was when I was almost eaten.” ―Jennifer Frick-Ruppert
58. “Never give up on someone who is having a bad day. Tomorrow could be yours.” ―Giovannie de Sadeleer
59. “This is turning into an alcohol-will-cure-everything kind of day.” ―Kelly Moran
60. “A bad day doesn’t cancel out a good life. Keep going.” ―Richie Norton
61. “Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.” —Maya Angelou
62. "Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for." —Joseph Heller
63. “Today is a hard day. Sometimes, there are hard days. Days stretched so tight with pain that they seem as if they can allow no room for hope.” ―Libba Bray
64. “'How was your day?' ought to be ‘How did you look at your day?'” ―Mokokoma Mokhonoana
65. “All heroes probably had doubts sometimes, she told herself. If she ever met Maximal Star, she would mention that he ought to write about the parts in between the daring rescues. The parts where you feel like a big time faker and failure.” ―Cassie Beasley
66. “He couldn't believe it was only Wednesday. And it was made worse when he realized it was actually Tuesday.” ―TJ Klune
67. “The first sign that Karma was now in cahoots with the Devil Incarnate to ruin her existence should've been before sunrise and pre-coffee.” ―Kelly Moran
68. “This day had officially punched every hole in her crazy ticket.” ―Kimberly Kincaid
69. “When you are having a really crappy day, and life seems to be kicking your ass, try to force your self to laugh. If you can achieve a smile and a laugh, you can chase any demons away” ―L.F. Young
70. “Never view obstacles in your path as the enemy. Rather, view any obstacles as detour signs to avoid pitfalls.” ―Donald L. Hicks
71. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” —Alice Walker
72. “Every single day is a good day no matter how bright or dark it is, because it always brings an opportunity to start a positive beginning in your life.” ―Edmond Mbiaka
73. “There is no good day or bad day, only good or bad actions.” ―Amit Kalantri
74. “Today might be shitty, tomorrow might be shitty, the next day might be s****y... but who's to say that one of the next days won't be the best day of your life?” ―Benjamin A. Collier
75. “It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.” —James Baldwin
76. “There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.” —Terry Pratchett
77. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” —Neil Gaiman
78. “You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; everything else is grandiose romanticism or politics.” —Charles Bukowski
79. “There is always something left to love.” —Gabriel García Márquez
80. “Each moment is a place you’ve never been.” —Mark Strand
81. “Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” —Samuel Johnson
82. “Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.” —P.D. James
83. “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” —Kurt Vonnegut
84. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” —Oscar Wilde
85. “A day is a day. It's just a measurement of time. Whether it's a good day or a bad day is up to you. It's all a matter of perception.” —Donald L. Hicks
86. “The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.” —Jack Kerouac
87. “You wanna fly, you got to give up the s*** that weighs you down.” —Toni Morrison
88. “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” —Carl Sagan
89. “The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.” —Colum McCann
90. “Challenges make life interesting, however overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” —Mark Twain
91. “Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched.” —Mindy Kaling
92. “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett
93. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” —George Orwell
94. “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.” —L. M. Montgomery
95. “Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!" —Charles Dickens
96. “Enjoy the elastic present, which can accommodate as little or as much as you want to put in there. Stretch it out, live inside of it.” —Charles Yu
97. “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt
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98. “The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude.” —Dennis S. Brown
99. “No one really has a bad life. Not even a bad day. Just bad moments.” —Regina Brett
100. "I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." —Louisa May Alcott
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Emily Ratay is a full-time writer living in Pittsburgh. She's passionate about the environment, feminism, astrology, and plans to write a non-fiction book in the future.