Top 100 If I Stayed Quotes
#1. I was always taught as a kid that if there's anything you want in life, you've got to work towards it. I guess that sort of stayed with me, really. But also, for me, from the time I was, like, 10 years old, all I ever wanted to do was be in a band and make music.
Paul Weller
#2. If I had to do it over again, I would have danced like Buenos Aires.
I'd be a helicopter leaf, a snowflake falling. I would have stayed there spinning wild and lonely across the dark, lonely sky.
Addie Zierman
#3. If anyone can be trusted, it's the Savior. He's always true, always faithful, loving, kind, right ... He never left me then, but stayed firm and strong, like a rock. I learned - even though it's tough sometimes - my Father knows best.
Ocieanna Fleiss
#4. I couldn't stand in front of any camera, and I couldn't go to places where there were a lot of people. I thought people would criticize me if I smiled, or even if I just stayed still.
Im Yoona
#5. In Gym, the kids on my team learned not to pass me the ball and to step quickly in front of me if the other team tried to take advantage of my weakness. I happily stayed out of their way.
Stephenie Meyer
#6. I needed to know you were what the promise of you seemed to be because I haven't been good with that shit in the past and, if you were, I needed to make certain you stayed where I wanted you to be.
Kristen Ashley
#7. I realized that my time in this place had come to an end; now that my schooldays
were over, I no longer belonged here. I had always been a stranger and, if I
stayed, I would become a stranger to myself as well.
Peter Ackroyd
#8. If I had stayed with football in college, I probably would have been a first-round pick.
Antonio Gates
#9. I thought of all the times we'd been together, how I kept coming closer, then retreating, while he stayed right where he was. A constant in a world where few, if any, really existed.
Sarah Dessen
#10. Watson."
"What?"
"I'm sorry I picked a fight with you," Holmes said sleepily. "But you should know I had a good reason."
"I know, I was being an idiot."
"No, it wasn't your fault. The note said you'd be killed if you stayed, so I fixed it. I was horrible until you went away.
Brittany Cavallaro
#11. You have to get over being shy, and just be comfortable with yourself, and I think that for me, if I'd stayed in a small town, I'd be a different person.
Marisa Miller
#12. I left Sudan when I was 25 or 26 years old. If I had stayed, I would never have ended up being an entrepreneur. You can have the qualities, but if you don't have the environment, you just wither away. It's like a fish: take it out of water, it will not survive.
Mo Ibrahim
#13. Growing up, if I hadn't had sports, I don't know where I'd be. God only knows what street corners I'd have been standing on and God only knows what I'd have been doing, but instead I played hockey and went to school and stayed out of trouble.
Bobby Orr
#14. My father was convinced, I think rightly, that if he stayed in Russia, he would have trouble with Lenin.
Leonid Hurwicz
#15. The story of Bennet Omalu is a riveting story; it's just a riveting tale. I knew from the beginning if I stayed close to that kind of storytelling and focussed on the character, then the other stuff comes along with it, and the message becomes baked into the journey.
Peter Landesman
#16. I couldn't imagine it, living a pristine life in this big Georgian house and everything. It seemed heinous. So I left him. I thought I'd go mad, if I stayed.
Sarah Rayner
#17. I have had to make do. Whose eyes had he been looking into, all those years? Cristina wondered as she leaned forward. She didn't know why she did it, exactly; maybe it was the way his eyes stayed fixed on hers, as if he couldn't imagine anything more fascinating than looking at her.
Cassandra Clare
#18. Luckily, he was in the process of moving to France at the time, anyway. But if he had stayed in the States, I don't know how he would have handled that, because it was getting pretty crazy. I mean, a celebrity which he really did not welcome. And I can't blame him.
Terry Zwigoff
#19. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't become an actor. If perhaps I'd stayed on at university and become an academic.
Rory Kinnear
#20. I shouldn't have stayed so long away. Every time I come here, I get so supercharged with energy. I truly believe that Israel is the energy centre of the world. And I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.
Madonna Ciccone
#21. If I were going to stay in coaching, I would have stayed right there because I was totally happy.
Darrell Royal
#22. I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government.
Alfonso Cuaron
#23. If I knew I couldn't win races, I would have stayed in the States.
Jacques Villeneuve
#24. I would be copping out if I stayed in the myth of the '60s.
Jerry Rubin
#25. But you know: you know that if I could have stayed, if I could have gone on, that I would have clutched every second: whatever it was, this death, you know that it came and took me, like a child carried away by goblins.
Audrey Niffenegger
#26. Look, I went to a lot of trouble to come here and try to help you. I'm in more trouble than I can guess, but if you don't want my help ... maybe I should have just stayed home.
D.L. Given
#27. I also once heard that if you have enough good ideas for three or four great novels, then what you probably have is actually enough ideas for one good one. That has stayed with me.
Darren White
#28. When critics ask you if you feel vindicated by other critics - I didn't like critics then, and I don't like them now. There you go. I've always been outside the mainstream, and it stayed that way.
Lou Reed
#29. Shhh, don't say a word. If anyone hears, there'll be hell to pay. Just let me look at you. And so I obeyed. I stayed there, quiet and still, while Aspen stared into my eyes.
Kiera Cass
#30. What if it's as simple as one moment? One tiny thing, like that kiss on the rocks? What if I'd kissed him a little longer? Would he be alive right now? Or what if I'd stayed with him Friday night, what if I'd been with him ... wherever he was?
Kristina McBride
#31. It is not." "If it is not, what have I to do with it?" "You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered. "I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer.
Oscar Wilde
#32. If I'd have wanted civilization I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living,
Larry McMurtry
#33. I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.
John Keats
#34. I knew if I stayed where I was, nothing would get better; nothing would change. If I wanted to ease the pain, I had to try something different.
Sharon E. Rainey
#35. But I also felt gloomy, dispirited, aware that if I stayed my life would be too deeply touched by these people. I would, in the end, become one of them.
Anonymous
#36. I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move.
Iris Murdoch
#37. If I stayed in my current job, I would continue to feel a sense of emptiness, but I would be successful in the traditional sense.
Kola Olaosebikan
#38. I always stayed away from political commentary. First of all, I didn't feel entitled. What I may feel about a candidate, I'm a comedian. I mean, if people like my comedy, that doesn't mean they should vote for the person I like. That's why I always kind of stayed away from endorsements.
Bob Newhart
#39. I will be gutted if Roy does go because I would far rather he stayed at Old Trafford.
(on Roy Keane leaving Manchester United)
Rio Ferdinand
#40. You think I wanted to fall for you? I stayed away from you! I gave him the chance to be with you! But there's another part of me that asks what if? What if you're not supposed to be with Ren? What if you were supposed to be the answer to my prayers? Not his!
Colleen Houck
#41. If I'd stayed at college I would have become a teacher.
Syd Barrett
#42. I loved getting classical training in terms of acting. I would've stayed in acting school for the rest of my life if I could have. It was this amazing period of my life where everything was so safe.
Dane DeHaan
#43. If I stayed angry at other people, I would miss finding friends among those I was angry with.
Rosa Parks
#44. If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever - something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.
Haruki Murakami
#45. I knew an Ethersworn monk once, who made it a practice to believe six impossible things before breakfast; if he could manage only five, he stayed in bed.
Matthew Woodring Stover
#46. Now maybe that Arizona incident will make sense to you. I had to get out of that apartment, because if I had stayed in that situation I would have switched, and then all of you would've known the secret that I've kept for so, so long.
Marlene Steinberg
#47. Annie," Tilly said. "If I wanted to suck vile fluids out of a flaccid and indifferent tube, I'd have stayed on Earth with my husband.
James S.A. Corey
#48. Yeah, sure. That's what you think." She sounds a little sad when she says it. A boy hasn't looked Mitzi in the eyes for years. Their eyes stayed glued to her chest. "I'll be her boyfriend noticed you or something like that. But if that's what happened, you're done.
Meg Medina
#49. Every time, I've bitten my tongue, stayed silent, with the thought: If I tell him, I'll lose him. Tonight is when I know. I already have.
Huntley Fitzpatrick
#50. I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no time for writing, which is why I went to Europe to live in 1961.
Gore Vidal
#51. If I wanted to be mommied my whole life, I would have stayed at home with my mommy" Duncan Krane from my book, Opportunity Found.
David Mullins
#52. If I'd stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvelous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.
J.L. Carr
#53. There was a tempest brewing in his eyes that I wasn't sure I would survive if I stayed in his gaze too long. But he told me with his sure hold that I could trust him and not to run before I'd given him a chance to show him what it was like to ride out the storm.
Shelly Crane
#54. Why can't you just look into my mind and see what happened for yourself? You erased
my memory, can't you bring it back?
-I buried it beyond even my reach, so as to be sure it stayed forgotten.
Great. If Mega-Master Mencheres couldn't pry it out, then it must really be lost.
Jeaniene Frost
#55. If I leaned toward him, something would happen. I was sure of it. But if I leaned away, nothing would happen. So I stayed perfectly still, balanced between something and nothing, not knowing which way I wanted to fall.
Julianne Donaldson
#56. She was so oblivious that she stayed up nights worrying that I was going to get myself pregnant. There was no way to tell her the only way that was going to happen was if God himself knocked me up.
David Levithan
#57. I began tailoring my books to cater to one or another universe of readers. I found it incredibly boring; and frankly, it felt stultifying. I'd previously been in advertising. I felt if I was going to create something to fit a specific market, I might as well have stayed with advertising.
M.J. Rose
#58. I have never seen a
man break the way he did. And he broke. Set half the damn Covenant on fire. If his brother hadn't
showed up when he had, I'm positive that he would've stayed in the burning building. Is that what you
wanted to know? Did it make you feel better, Alexandria?
Jennifer L. Armentrout
#59. I have often asked myself if I would have worked as hard if I was as ill as Steve Jobs. My answer is that my wife most likely would not have let me work, and I would have stayed home. But I am not Steve Jobs.
Terry Gou
#60. If I had stayed purely a horror writer or thriller writer, I might have more of a presence in those particular genres, and I'd certainly have more individual titles to market, since it's much easier to write pure genre fiction than it is to create something different.
Chet Williamson
#61. The tear stayed in her eye, never falling down her cheek, and then the left side of her mouth crept up into a half-smile. This was my mom. She would come home to us again.
-If I Know It's Coming
Nick Hupton
#62. If I stay another day, I'll be here for another year. And if I stayed another year, I'll never leave.
Paulo Coelho
#63. If I had wanted to be protected in a quiet job, I could have stayed at Porto. I would have been second, after God, in the eyes of the fans even if I had never won another thing.
Jose Mourinho
#64. If I had stayed in Hollywood, I would have killed myself. Or someone would have done it for me
Piper Laurie
#65. If I had stayed in Belfast, my life there wouldn't have as easy as it was in Scotland. I see the strain on the people who stayed. Always worrying about the safety of their children.
Joan Lingard
#66. I was so afraid that we would just keep colliding over and over again if we stayed together, and that eventually the impact would break me. But now I know I am like the blade and he is like the whetstone
I am too strong to break so easily, and I become better, sharper, every time I touch him.
Veronica Roth
#67. I took a very careful hold of the metal door handle. No shocks and nothing exploded. I pulled gently and the door yielded, but I stayed on the balls of my feet. If I felt the tension of a wire or heard a click, I was going to set a new land speed record for a scared white guy in a hazmat suit.
Jonathan Maberry
#68. My dad had told me that if you stayed out after nine and you were a girl it meant that you wanted to have sex with whoever was passing by. He told me that if I got raped after nine o'clock the courts would probably say I deserved it.
Heather O'Neill
#69. The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.
J.R.R. Tolkien
#70. I think kids should go to high school until they're 30. No, really, because people are staying younger now and there's nothing to do. If you stayed longer, then it would be really great.
Andy Warhol
#71. If I'd made it right away as an actor, I would've stopped at a certain level and stayed there, probably as a character actor.
Sylvester Stallone
#72. Baccarat is a game whereby the croupier gathers in money with a flexible sculling oar, then rakes it home. If I could have borrowed his oar I would have stayed.
Mark Twain
#73. Adam said, I bet you couldn't sleep if you stayed in bed. You know what I bet? I bet you get up because you want to, and then you take credit for it - like taking credit for six fingers.
John Steinbeck
#74. Often, I think, displaced people imagine themselves leading double lives. So a portion of my identity has always been privately siphoned into what would have been if I had stayed in Wisconsin.
Mona Simpson
#75. Would you still love me if I killed someone?" I said nothing. My breath was coming too fast. "I would still love you," Go said. "Go, do you really need me to say it?" She stayed silent. "I did not kill Amy." She stayed silent. "Do you believe me?" I asked. "I love you.
Gillian Flynn
#76. I ask myself: Would I have been any worse off if I had stayed home or lived on a farm instead of shock treatments and medication?
Gene Tierney
#77. I knew I didn't have much of a chance of getting away from that swarm of fae piranha, but it was an infinitely larger chance than I would have if I stayed in the car and burned to death. Hell's bells, what I wouldn't give to have my shield bracelet. Or my old staff. I didn't even have an umbrella.
Jim Butcher
#78. I hate school at that time. Now, little did I know that actually if I had stayed in school I would've actually really liked college. I wasn't aware enough to know that the junior high I was suffering through would be school at its worst.
Quentin Tarantino
#79. I could break things in a thousand ways
anything from surgical dismantling as meticulous as a bomb squad work to wrecking ball style mass destruction. If I broke a thing, it stayed broke. If I broke one of my things, I lived with the pieces, or replaced it.
Joshilyn Jackson
#80. What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some point stayed up all night talking to your new boyfriend about the meaning of life instead of preparing for the test, then you're not really an intellectual.'
Alison Gopnik
#81. I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended up starting my own technology consulting company.
Mae Jemison
#82. I have never separated form and content. The photo should have a meaning. But my photos are also more or less well constructed. If they had false notes, they stayed on the contact sheet.
Willy Ronis
#83. I have a lot of regrets about what I've done. If I had to do it over again, I never would have left the Mets. I'm very thankful for all that Mr. (George) Steinbrenner did for me when I was with the Yankees, but I wish I had stayed in New York with the Mets.
Darryl Strawberry
#84. You left, but it wasn't your fault. So you've stayed perfect in my memory. I guess my fear is, if I let myself love you, you might turn out to be just human. And if you're just human, you could easily hurt me too. I couldn't survive being hurt by you Danny.
Kerry Heavens
#85. As soon as I left one town, I was in another, each one a totally different world, as if an invisible box surrounded its edges, keeping everybody in their proper place.
The rich stayed rich. The poor stayed poor. The troublemakers stayed in trouble.
Carolee Dean
#86. Even if I had stayed she wouldn't have ever wanted me. She didn't want me for anything more than a summer fling. I was a way of moving on for her.
Abbi Glines
#87. What sort of champion would I be if I just stayed in my normal weight division and didn't take the big challenges on? Bring them on, that's what Ricky Hatton's all about.
Ricky Hatton
#88. If I didn't have a job, I might have stayed in bed until I rotted.
Claire Cook
#89. I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it.
Cillian Murphy
#90. Seriously, if we stayed inside the lines on everything we're supposed to be doing, we wouldn't get anything done. Know what I mean?
Susane Colasanti
#91. My heart was beating so hard that for a second I thought I might pass out. It was like revisiting the hole where you'd once been held in solitary confinement: a force field of muscle-memory-stored pain and toxic energy so palpable I was afraid that if I stayed any longer it might suck me back in.
Heather King
#92. If only I'd stayed on the West Coast, I might have made something of myself.
Mitch Kapor
#93. If it weren't for this hyena, the sailors wouldn't have thrown me into the lifeboat and I would have stayed on the ship and I surely would have drowned; and if I had to share quarters with a wild animal, better the upfront ferocity of a dog than the power and stealth of a cat.
Yann Martel
#94. If I stayed in this game for individual achievements, I don't think I'd still be playing.
Chili Davis
#95. I always stayed on before and after practice. I just think that if you want to excel at anything, be it basketball, dance or the piano, you need to practice a lot.
Dolph Schayes
#96. I don't think I would have stayed for the second season if I hadn't been happy.
Sarah Sutton
#97. I've never stayed at a bed and breakfast. If I did, I figure you would start to get hungry! "Is that all you got around here? Well, maybe you can direct me to a chair lunch dinner."
Mitch Hedberg
#98. If you wanted reflections on the nature of the universe and your place in it, you should have stayed in school. You want fart noises and cock jokes, I'm your man.
A.J. Hartley
#99. If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.
William Petersen
#100. Char saw me. Over the shoulder of his partner, he mouthed, "Wait for me."
I grew roots. An earthquake could not have moved me. The clock struck a quarter before eleven. If it had struck the end of the world, I'd have stayed as I was.
Gail Carson Levine
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top