Top 100 C.J. Tudor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Never assume. Question everything. Always look beyond the obvious.”

— C.J. Tudor

2. “A life full of promise. But that’s all life ever is. A promise. Not a guarantee. We like to believe we have our place all set out in the future, but we only have a reservation. Life can be canceled at any moment, with no warning, no refund, no matter how far along you are in the journey. Even if you’ve barely had time to take in the scenery.”

— C.J. Tudor

3. “Karma. What you sow, you reap. You do bad things and they’ll come back eventually and bite you on the backside.”

— C.J. Tudor

4. “You’re not protecting me when you keep stuff from me, you’re just worrying me.”

— C.J. Tudor

5. “A principled man is generally a man who has everything he wants, or absolutely nothing to lose.”

— C.J. Tudor

6. “Your world shrinks as you grow older. You become Gulliver in your very own Lilliput.”

— C.J. Tudor

7. “People say hate and bitterness will destroy you. They’re wrong. It’s hope. Hope will devour you from the inside like a parasite. It will leave you hanging like bait above a shark. But hope won’t kill you. It’s not that kind.”

— C.J. Tudor

8. “My life has been defined by the things I didn’t do. The things I didn’t say. I think it’s the same for a lot of people. What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions.”

— C.J. Tudor

9. “No one ever found any answers at the bottom of a bottle. Not the point, of course. The point of reaching the bottom of the bottle is generally to forget the questions.”

— C.J. Tudor

10. “There are no winners in life. Life is ultimately all about losing: your youth, your looks. But most of all, those you love.”

— C.J. Tudor

11. “Never trust a person whose bookshelves are lined with pristine books, or worse, someone who places the books with their covers facing outwards. That person is not a reader. That person is a shower. Look at me and my great literary taste. Look at these acclaimed tomes that I have, most probably, never read. A reader cracks the spine, thumbs the pages, absorbs every word and nuance. You might not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can definitely judge the person who owns the book.”

— C.J. Tudor

12. “Grief is personal. It isn’t something you can share, like a box of chocolates. It is yours and yours alone. A spiked steel ball chained to your ankle. A coat of nails around your shoulders. A crown of thorns. No one else can feel your pain. They cannot walk in your shoes because your shoes are full of broken glass and every time you try and take a step forward it rips your soles to bloody shreds. Grief is the worst kind of torture and it never ends. You.”

— C.J. Tudor

13. “Never assume. To assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ’me.”

— C.J. Tudor

14. “People say time is a great healer. They’re wrong. Time is simply a great eraser. It rolls on and on regardless, eroding our memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there’s nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear. Broken hearts don’t mend. Time just takes the pieces and grinds them to dust.”

— C.J. Tudor

15. “Love isn’t a choice. It’s a compulsion.”

— C.J. Tudor

16. “Flo isn’t really a huge fan of social media. She doesn’t like how everyone pretends they have an amazing life or how they filter their faces a zillion times so they don’t even look human. It’s all false and fake.”

— C.J. Tudor

17. “None of us is ever really prepared for death. For something so finite. As human beings, we’re used to being able to control our lives. To extend them, to an extent. But death brooks no argument. No final plea. No appeal. Death is death, and he holds all the cards. Even if you cheat him once, he won’t let you call his bluff a second time.”

— C.J. Tudor

18. “It’s a gray, blustery day, the wind herding clouds across the sky like a parent hurrying along recalcitrant children.”

— C.J. Tudor

19. “We think we want answers. But what we really want are the right answers. Human nature. We ask questions that we hope will give us the truth we want to hear. The problem is, you can’t choose your truths. Truth has a habit of simply being the truth. The only real choice you have is whether to believe it or not.”

— C.J. Tudor

20. “Principles are nice things. If you can afford them. I like to think I am a principled man, but then, most men do. The fact is, we all have a price, we all have buttons that can press to make us do things that are not entirely honorable. Principles do not pay the mortgage or clear our debts. A principled man is generally a man who has everything he wants or absolutely nothing to lose.”

— C.J. Tudor

21. “We think we want answers. But what we really want are the right answers. Human nature. We ask questions that we hope will give us the truth we want to hear. The problem is, you can’t choose your truths.”

— C.J. Tudor

22. “None of it was true but rumors are like germs. They spread and multiply almost in a breath and before you know it, everyone is contaminated.”

— C.J. Tudor

23. “I don’t think how you act in this life makes any difference after you die. Good or bad. But it does make a big difference while you’re alive. To other people. That’s why you should always try to treat them well.”

— C.J. Tudor

24. “Better to be a fool than an angel.”

— C.J. Tudor

25. “Death was final and absolute and there was nothing anyone could do to change it.”

— C.J. Tudor

26. “The thing you have to understand is that being a good person isn’t about singing hymns, or praying to some mystical, god. It isn’t about wearing a cross or going to church every Sunday. Being a good person is about how you treat others. A good person doesn’t need a religion, because they are content within themselves that they are doing the right thing.”

— C.J. Tudor

27. “Thin, I think, that fabric between realities. Maybe minds aren’t lost. Maybe they just slip through and find a different place to wander.”

— C.J. Tudor

28. “Arnhill is not a welcoming village. It is bitter and brooding and sour. It keeps to itself and views visitors with distrust. It is stoic and steadfast and weary all at the same time. It is the sort of village that glowers at you when you arrive and spits on the ground in disgust as you leave.”

— C.J. Tudor

29. “History itself is only ever a story, told by the ones who survive it.”

— C.J. Tudor

30. “People say that life finds a way. Perhaps, sometimes, death does too.”

— C.J. Tudor

31. “A reader cracks the spine, thumbs the pages, absorbs every word and nuance. You might not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can definitely judge the person who owns the book.”

— C.J. Tudor

32. “Real friends are there no matter what. Real friends are people you love and hate in equal measure but who are as much a part of you as yourself.”

— C.J. Tudor

33. “The past isn’t real. It’s just a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes we lie.”

— C.J. Tudor

34. “Love isn’t a choice. It’s a compulsion. I know that now. But perhaps, sometimes, you should choose.”

— C.J. Tudor

35. “What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.”

— C.J. Tudor

36. “Teaching is not all about rankings and inspection reports. It’s about helping our young people to become decent, rounded human beings, and getting them through their teens in one piece. If you lose them at this age, you lose them forever.”

— C.J. Tudor

37. “Secrets are like arseholes. We all have them. It’s just that some are dirtier than others.”

— C.J. Tudor

38. “Never assume,” my dad once told me. “To assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”

— C.J. Tudor

39. “The Church isn’t just for those who believe in God. It’s for those who don’t have anything to believe in. The lonely, lost and homeless. A place of refuge.”

— C.J. Tudor

40. “They were chanting a lot of stuff about love but they seemed full of hate.”

— C.J. Tudor

41. “People tried to make sense of tragedy, when the point of tragedy was that it was senseless. Bad things didn’t happen for a greater reason. They just happened.”

— C.J. Tudor

42. “Funny how the good memories flit by like butterflies: fleeting, fragile, impossible to capture without crushing them. But the bad ones – the guilt, the shame – they hang on in there, like parasites. Quietly eating you away from the inside.”

— C.J. Tudor

43. “You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can certainly judge a person by their books.”

— C.J. Tudor

44. “If Arnhill was a living organism, then the mine was its beating, smoke-bellowing heart.”

— C.J. Tudor

45. “I often think his skills would be better put to use in politics rather than the Church, but then, perhaps there isn’t so much difference. We both preach to the converted.”

— C.J. Tudor

46. “Nice cottage. Nice car. Nice clothes. But you never really know. You never really know what goes on inside.”

— C.J. Tudor

47. “Often, what comes with age is not wisdom but intolerance.”

— C.J. Tudor

48. “It’s a sad fact that beauty, real beauty, just eclipses everything and everyone around it.”

— C.J. Tudor

49. “We all have our hiding places. Not just physical ones. Places deep inside where we put away the things we don’t want others to see. The less palatable parts. Our St. Peter’s box, I call it, The one we pray he won’t find when we’re trying to sneak in through the pearly gates.”

— C.J. Tudor

50. “However, even as a kid, I could sense the anger – the venom – of those protesters. Something about their eyes, the spittle that exploded from their mouths, the way they brandished their banners like weapons. They were chanting a lot of stuff about love but they seemed full of hate.”

— C.J. Tudor