Intensity Quotes

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Lonely people have enthusiasms which cannot always be explained. When something strikes them as funny, the intensity and length of their laughter mirrors the depth of their loneliness, and they are capable of laughing like hyenas. When something touches their emotions, it runs through them like Paul Revere, awakening feelings that gather into great armies.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.”
― Robert Greene, Mastery

“I make love with a focus and intensity that most people reserve for sleep.”
― Dark Jar Tin Zoo, Love Quotes for the Ages. Specifically Ages 19-91.

“How well I know with what burning intensity you live. You have experienced many lives already, including several you have shared with me- full rich lives from birth to death, and you just have to have these rest periods in between.”
― anais nin

“the intensity
in your eyes

burns my pen
as i write.”
― Sanober Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest

“Stolen moments” create a feeling of enjoyment in our “intensive time” awareness. The glow and the intensity of those instants can guide us throughout a whole lifetime. They can expose a second or a third dimension of the daily events and shed an expounding light on all the little details we encounter. ("Stolen moments" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I still believed he'd love me again somehow, love me that intense, thick way he did, the way that made everything good.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“I didn’t want anybody seeing my fire until I burned them with it.”
― Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet

“In the spring of her twenty-second year, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. An intense love, a veritable tornado sweeping across the plains—flattening everything in its path, tossing things up in the air, ripping them to shreds, crushing them to bits. The tornado’s intensity doesn’t abate for a second as it blasts across the ocean, laying waste to Angkor Wat, incinerating an Indian jungle, tigers and everything, transforming itself into a Persian desert sandstorm, burying an exotic fortress city under a sea of sand. In short, a love of truly monumental proportions. The person she fell in love with happened to be 17 years older than Sumire. And was married. And, I should add, was a woman. This is where it all began, and where it all ended. Almost.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity”
― Mina Loy, The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems

“These are the intensities that one cannot live with, that he has to outgrow if he wants to survive. But who can help grieving for them? If the blood vessels could hold them, how much better to keep those early loves with us?”
― Tennessee Williams, Collected Stories

“I steal into their dreams," he said. "I steal into their most shameful thoughts, I'm in every shiver, every spasm of their souls, I steal into their hearts, I scrutinize their most fundamental beliefs, I scan their irrational impulses, their unspeakable emotions, I sleep in their lungs during the summer and their muscles during the winter, and all of this I do without the least effort, without intending to, without asking or seeking it out, without constraints, driven only by love and devotion.”
― Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“Intensity-seeking is an enslavement of our own perpetuation. When we step out of the delirium of always seeking someone new, and meet the same old sad and lonely child within, our healing journey begins. Exhausting ourselves with novelty is a defense against our deepest pain, one that we cannot outrun. But once we stop and feel our losses, we can begin our healing journey and be the authentic, joyous person we were born to be.”
― Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

“Some people confuse intensity for passion and challenge for attraction.”
― Donna Lynn Hope

“Have you seen what wolves do to their prey? But they do mate for life.”
― Donna Lynn Hope

“Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options.
He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted myself to be.”
― Markus Zusak, Getting the Girl

“My mouth opened.
It happened.
Yes, with my head thrown into the sky, I started howling.
Arms stretched out next to me, I howled, and everything came out of me. Visions pored up my throat and past voices surrounded me. The sky listened. The city didn't. I didn't care. All I cared about was that I was howling so that I could hear my voice and so I would remember that the boy had intensity and something to offer. I howled, oh, so loud and desperate, telling a world that I was here and I wouldn't lie down.”
― Markus Zusak, Underdog

“He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“The thing that struck me was his intensity. Whatever he was interested in he would generally carry to an irrational extreme." Jobs had honed his trick of using stares and silences to master other people. " One of his numbers was to stare at the person he was talking to. He would stare into their fucking eyeballs, ask some question, and would want a response without the other person averting their eyes.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“Those men who live with the greatest intensity are often the ones who seem to take least interest in life.”
― Remy de Gourmont, Philosophic Nights in Paris

“Live as intensely as possible, burn your candle of life from both ends.”
― Osho, And The Flowers Showered Discourses On Zen

“Good and bad are not opposites, they are both just different forms of intensity.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women

“There was a lot about Kim and J.P. he didn't get.... he was confused by their lack of romance. As a father, he was at times grateful for that missing intensity, but as a man who liked to surprise his wife with flowers, it baffled him. Maybe he was old-fashioned, but to him a couple meant a strong bond, with positive and negative charges constantly arcing between them. He'd never seen Kim and J.P. kiss, let alone argue.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Songs for the Missing

“Life wants each of us to live on the 'A Team' -
      Wider, ever more intense Acceptance of good in our lives.
      Wider, ever more intense Awareness of good in our lives.
      Wider, ever more intense Action for good in our lives.
www.upwardjoy.com”
― Laura Teresa Marquez

“Now he must deal with the security system, which has recorded everything that he's done. A video camera is mounted over the front door and focused on the cashiers' counter. Edgler Foreman Vess has no desire to see himself on television news. Living with intensity is virtually impossible when one is in prison.”
― Dean Koontz, Intensity

“Being your age, it’s the best and the worst. You know what I mean? Like, everything is so intense. So extreme, and it all feels life or death, even when it’s not. Everything does. Exams, friendships, first love. But that’s what’s so great about it. You just feel so alive all the time. You just feel.”
― C.J. Leede, American Rapture

“Sometimes when I was around Luke I forgot that I could walking away was an option. He has this pull - this way of drawing me into the challenge. When he was around, I was surrounded by his intensity and the world came down to that feeling, the give and take between us.

He always seemed to know what to say to get my brain hooked too, which was the worst part.”
― Maggie Dallen, The Holiday Kiss