Every life, properly understood, is compelling. Anyone aspiring to be an artist knows there’s no such thing as why-bother or nothing-to-see.

—David Shields

understanding empathy importance life

About David Shields

Portrait of David Shields

David Shields (born July 22, 1956) is an American author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger (2010), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008), and Black Planet (1999). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, twice an NEA Fellow, a PEN Revson Award winner, a finalist...

More quotations tagged with “life”

Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you… You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.

—John Gardner

life meaning past experience affection uniqueness loyalty controll

Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?

—Ashleigh Brilliant

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

life quality longevity

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

life memory dullness details

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

—Johnny Carson

life music art fairness Elvis

History

28 Nov 2012 Added
8 Dec 2014 Edited (details weren’t recorded yet)