Ordinary Quotes

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
― William Martin, The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

“No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.”
― H. P. Lovecraft, Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales

“The pretty ones are usually unhappy. They expect everyone to be enamored of their beauty. How can a person be content when their happiness lies in someone else's hands, ready to be crushed at any moment? Ordinary-looking people are far superior, because they are forced to actually work hard to achieve their goals, instead of expecting people to fall all over themselves to help them.”
― J. Cornell Michel, Jordan's Brains: A Zombie Evolution

“Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible”
― Cherie Carter-Scott

“Seven years, Dawn. Working with the Slayer. Seeing my friends get more and more powerful... a witch. A demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful, all of them. And I'm the guy who fixes the windows.

They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't Chosen, to live so near the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me.

I saw you last night, and I see you working here today. You're not special; you're extraordinary.”
― Joss Whedon

“If you pursue happiness, you are an ordinary person. If happiness pursues you, you are an extraordinary person. Do not chase happiness; let it chase you.”
― Peter Deunov

“Believe it or not, that was the first time I recognized that in some ways she was just like the rest of us.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember

“There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worth while from time to time making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. What is the best way of countering the sluggish habitutation brought about by our gradual crawl from babyhood? We can't actually fly to another planet. But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways.”
― Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

“Carpe diem.Seize the day, boys.
Make your lives extraordinary”
― Williams Robin Professor Keating

“If you want to lead an extraordinary life, find out what the ordinary do–and don't do it.”
― Tommy Newberry, Success Is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices, Change Your Life

“She was ordinary. She was remarkable. Of such commonplace contradictions are weapons made.”
― Seanan McGuire, In an Absent Dream

“Recognizing our littleness in nature's splendors instills humbleness, and finding joy in "the sparkle of a stray instant" transforms the ordinary into the unique, the mundane into the magical. (Love, Happiness, and Insight)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“A well-trained mind responded to symptoms.
An ordinary mind reacted after it happened.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.”
― Judith Guest, Ordinary People

“I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony. I do not crave security. I wish to hazard my soul to opportunity.”
― Peter O'Toole

“Logan stopped and gazed skyward as the kite began to soar above them, and when he clapped his hands at Ben's obvious joy, she was strucked by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people.”
― Nicholas Sparks (The Lucky One)

“I wasn’t a nerd, mind you, but I’d spent a lot of my youth studying Epics, so I’d had limited experience with social interaction. I mixed with ordinary people about the same way that a bucket of paint mixed with a bag of gerbils.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Firefight

“It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“I like to prowl ordinary places
and taste the people-
from a distance.”
― Charles Bukowski, Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

“But the trouble with sainthood these days is the robe-and-halo imagery that gets stuck onto it." Carl got that brooding look again. "People forget that robes were street clothes once... and still are, in a lot of places. And halos are to that fierce air of innocence what speech balloons in comics are to the sound of the voice itself. Shorthand. But most people just see an old symbol and don't bother looking behind it for the meaning. Sainthood starts to look old-fashioned, unattainable... even repellent. Actually, you can see it all around, once you learn to spot it.”
― Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone

“A writer's goal is to weave the ordinary into fine silk and the truly extraordinary into diaphanous clarity ...”
― CJ Heck

“the times we worked harder to make the day stand out.

our story demanded that we change and so we did.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I'd miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I'm sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“Extraordinary magic is woven through ordinary life. Look around!”
― Amy Leigh Mercree

“In extraordinary times, the ordinary takes on a glow and wonder all of its own”
― Mike A. Lancaster, Human.4

“Man is the victim of an environment which refuses to understand his soul.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“God can take the ordinary and create the extraordinary. Our incredible God has the power to transform your simple life and give you the life of your dreams. Remarkable things happen in your life when you believe.”
― Amaka Imani Nkosazana, Heart Crush

“Everyone thinks "ordinary" is easy and all, but how many of them would actually fit into the so-called smooth road the word implied? It sure was a lot harder for me, someone who was not born ordinary. That didn't mean I was extraordinary. I was just a strange boy wandering around somewhere in between. So I decided to give it a try. To become ordinary.”
― Won-pyung Sohn, Almond