Simple Pleasures Quotes

“I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
― Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally

“I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.”
― Emma Goldman

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
― Walt Whitman

“Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful than all the banquets in the world ...”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“The greatest challenge in life is to be our own person and accept that being different is a blessing and not a curse. A person who knows who they are lives a simple life by eliminating from their orbit anything that does not align with his or her overriding purpose and values. A person must be selective with their time and energy because both elements of life are limited.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane--in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath--she had probably put herself in unnecessary danger.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Simple pleasures are best.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Magnus had been alive hundreds of years himself, and yet the simplest things could turn a day into a jewel, and a succession of days into a glittering chain that went on and on. Here was the simplest thing: a pretty girl liked him, and the day shone.”
― Cassandra Clare, Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

“I think I want a house of my own," I start, the words a discovery as they leave my mouth. "Something small, so I don't have much housework, but enough room for a proper library. I want a lot of books. And I wouldn't mind a good old dog to walk with me. And a bakery I go to every morning where they know my name.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

“...Tea. There is nothing saner than tea, he thought. ... Tea was the great leveler. It brought calm, quiet, contentment, warmth. And it was something to do.
.....Tea-- so normal, so mundane, so hot...
...The heat and scent of it permeated his head and cleared his mind. He understood completely the attraction of ceremonies grounded in the ritual of drinking tea.
It required both caution and abandonment of the senses. It demanded that you move into it slowly and savor the moment. And it rewarded you with warmth and delicacy of taste and refreshment.
And after you were done, it could parse out your future.”
― Thea Devine

“What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day. And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this month sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps, with the perfume of young larches all about, and the May moon hanging low over the beeches, and the beautiful silence made only more profound in its peace by the croaking of distant frogs and hooting of owls?”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden

“True contentment is found in the quiet moments, wrapped in each other’s arms, with no place we'd rather be.”
― Rendi Ansyah, Beyond the Bouquet: A Symphony of Love in Fifty Movements

“What a pretty color...
A kind of goldish-green, with an emerald tint to it...
Mmm...!
A sweet, gentle, slightly bitter flavor with a soft aftertaste...
It's as if a breeze from a mountain stream has just blown through my body...
I probably wouldn't have understood this flavor if you had just given it to me the moment I arrived here after walking under the sun.
It's all because I drank that hot hōjicha first...
Now I get it! You made me walk under the scorching sun so that I'd understand the flavor of this tea...
This house... the mild breeze from the rice paddies... the sound of cicadas... the dragonflies...
What luxury..."
"This gyokuro is the last thing I've prepared for you today."
"Ōhara, I'm going to get angry if you give me anything else.
I've just had a taste of real Japan. The spirit of Japan.
As long as the Japanese do not lose this spirit, they'll be fine.
This is that essential ingredient all those expensive feasts were lacking.
So what more could I ask for?”
― Tetsu Kariya, Japanese Cuisine

“Be simple and live simple, thus you rise incorruptible.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“There was no chance she'd be able to focus on anything else, and so she'd walked all the way from Hampstead, through Primrose Hill, across Regent's Park, to arrive at the museum in time for opening. It hadn't taken long for her to find herself in the tearoom, where she was now finishing off a pot of Darjeeling and a slice of banana bread.”
― Kate Morton, Homecoming

“Simplicity is my fashion,
Moderation is my trend.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“The world needs more people who celebrate the little things in life and find life in every little thing.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“When I felt better, I tried to remember what had been beautiful in my life. I did not think about love or how I had wandered all over the world. I did not think about night flights across the ocean or how I played Canadian hockey in Prague. I remembered walking along the brooks, rivers, ponds, and dams to fish. I realized that these were the most beautiful experiences in my life.”
― Ota Pavel, How I Came to Know Fish

“Do you wish I’d given you to some rich people to raise like that Falcon girl?”
Margie thought about the fancy house and swimming pool and gardens and horses. Then she thought about the single-wide at the Arroyo where she and her mom lived, and the kitchen where Mama went to make sandwiches every morning. She thought about giggles and snuggles at bedtime, dancing to “Waltz Across Texas” and jumping into the chilly clear water at Barton Springs on a hot day, and how she loved the sound of her mother’s laughter, and she couldn’t imagine any other life.
“Nah,” she said, thinking of the girls in the mansion. “I reckon those two sisters didn’t seem any happier or sadder than any other kid. And their mom was scary.”
“You’re an old soul, Seesaw Marjorie Daw. I’m glad you’re mine.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“I’m sure we are all familiar with that gratifying feeling of having our coffee or drink order given to us before we’ve asked. It means recognition, which in turn makes us feel that we belong.”
― Hugo Macdonald, How to Live in the City

“Simply to be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth, yet he could not appreciate it:”
― J.K. Rowling

“What we had done was to seek out, in our chosen home community, those things that were the most meaningful to us. We realized that it is all too easy to ignore the natural beauty and simple pleasure right around us and to complain instead about dull surroundings or the inevitable hard knocks of life.”
― Jimmy Carter, Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life

“You asked me what I liked about baths. I suppose it's the vulnerability, the sense of comfort one feels. Covered, embraced, when in fact, one is quite exposed.”
― Stéphane Narcisse

“Therefore we see that our corporeal life
Needs little, altogether, and only such
As takes the pain away, and can besides
Strew underneath some number of delights.
More grateful ’tis at times (for nature craves
No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth
There be no golden images of boys
Along the halls, with right hands holding out
The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts,
And if the house doth glitter not with gold
Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound
No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead,
Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass
Beside a river of water, underneath
A big tree’s boughs, and merrily to refresh
Our frames, with no vast outlay — most of all
If the weather is laughing and the times of the year
Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things
___Trans: William Ellery Leonard”
― Alain de Botton, Consolations of Philosophy

“To wear simple, reveals a lot.
To live simple, feels a lot.
To own less, heals a lot.
To speak less, speaks a lot.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn

“Il n'y a que le timbre des voix familières, les visages amis que ma mémoire recompose pour préserver une continuité à ma longue vie.”
― Marceline Loridan-Ivens, L'Amour après

“it was the small pleasures of his work that seemed in their simplicities to fill him to the brim.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge

“The little stories of love, kindness, peace, hope, and dreams are more important than the mega stories of money, fame, victory, and revenge.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“When you’re young, the days are stacked against one's imagination, not the weather forecast.”
― Jeff Baron, Just South of Faithful

“The simple pleasures make this life worth it.”
― Bert McCoy, A Lil' Bert Can't Hurt: Words and Wisdom for Daily Life