Top 80 Steven Rowley Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Yours is by far the harder lot, but mine is happening to me.”

— Steven Rowley

2. “Guncle Rule number eight: Live your life to the fullest every single day, because every day is a gift. That’s why people die. To teach us the importance of living.”

— Steven Rowley

3. “I always thought Peter Pan was death. An angel of death who came to collect children.”

— Steven Rowley

4. “What do we say in this house? Boys can do girl things and girls can do boy things. That’s not even a Guncle Rule, there shouldn’t even be boy things and girl things to begin with. People should just do what they want.”

— Steven Rowley

5. “Dogs, on the other hand... dogs have pure souls. Look at me.” I grab her chin and look straight into her eyes. “Dogs are always good and full of selfless love. They are undiluted vessels of joy who never, ever deserve anything bad that happens to them. Especially you. Since the day I met you, you have done nothing but make my life better in every possible way. Do you understand?”

— Steven Rowley

6. “Most of all, I am thankful for Lily, who, since she entered my life, has taught me everything I know about patience and kindness and meeting adversity with quiet dignity and grace. No one makes me laugh harder, or want to hug them tighter. You have truly lived up to the promise of man’s best friend.”

— Steven Rowley

7. “The sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June Gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We are both tired, and it would’ve been to return to our bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.”

— Steven Rowley

8. “Guncle Rule number five: If a gay man hands you his phone, look only at what he’s showing you. If it’s a photo, don’t swipe. And for god’s sake, don’t open any unfamiliar apps.”

— Steven Rowley

9. “Gay people, Christians always fighting over the symbolism when rainbows rightfully belonged to the leprechauns.”

— Steven Rowley

10. “Guncle Rule number seven: In this house we wear what we want, it doesn’t matter if it’s for boys or girls. Anything goes, anything you want, so long as it doesn’t have mean words printed on it and it’s not making fun of anyone else. We don’t worry about what others think. Deal?”

— Steven Rowley

11. “Be present in the moment. Give spontaneous affection.”

— Steven Rowley

12. “I don’t know the derivation of this comfort craving, but there’s a quote from Cookie Monster that’s always inhabited my head: ‘Today me will live in the moment, unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie.’ While I don’t take all of my mantras from goggle-eyed blue monsters with questionable grammar, this one has taken root. Lately I’ve been craving cookies a lot.”

— Steven Rowley

13. “Someone once said give a dog food and shelter and treats and they think you are a god, but give a cat the same and they think they are the god.”

— Steven Rowley

14. “She taught me everything I know about patience, kindness, strength, and unconditional love. For that, I am forever in her debt. Lily, you were, quite simply, the greatest to me.”

— Steven Rowley

15. “You can’t spell nemesis without me, sis.”

— Steven Rowley

16. “Books should be an experience, he thought, not a trophy for having read them.”

— Steven Rowley

17. “Death is a unique opponent, in that death always wins.” Kal offers a small hiccup of a shrug, as if this is of little significance. “There’s no shame in surrender when it’s time to stop fighting.”

— Steven Rowley

18. “I love you, he said silently in his head, to himself, to the kids, to Joe, to Sara, to no one. To everyone.”

— Steven Rowley

19. “Grief is a pathological condition. It’s just that so many of us go through it in life that we never think to treat it as such.”

— Steven Rowley

20. “I’m not gay professionally, Cassie. I maintain my amateur status to compete in the Gay Olympics.”

— Steven Rowley

21. “I gently lift her up and study her Frankenstein scar. it’s like she’s now assembled from two different dogs: the puppy who will always want to play, and the senior dog who must come to understand her limits.”

— Steven Rowley

22. “He cursed her silently at the dinner table, angry that she could not understand things that he would never allow her to see. But the whole time, he had a mother to curse, to hate, to forgive. He had a mother to stand there and listen, to take these tirades and to forgive him right back.”

— Steven Rowley

23. “Grief is a pathological condition. It’s just that so many of us go through it in life that we never think to treat it as such. We just expect people to go through it, endure it, and come out the other side.”

— Steven Rowley

24. “How quickly she’d become part of the family by doing nothing else but resting her chin on his thigh while snoozing.”

— Steven Rowley

25. “Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.”

— Steven Rowley

26. “There are two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.”

— Steven Rowley

27. “So many nights Patrick had looked up at the desert night sky trying to find meaning, trying to locate himself. He would always come back to the same thing: stargazing was time traveling.”

— Steven Rowley

28. “After a pause Lily looks up at me. “Sometimes I think of you as Dad.” My heart rises in my throat. That’s the only term of endearment I need.”

— Steven Rowley

29. “If you spend your entire life trying to cheat death, there’s no time left over to embrace life.”

— Steven Rowley

30. “I wish you total freedom from pain. Freedom from the body that failed you. I hope that you’re full of light, unconstrained, and that you can dance. Because I know how you loved to dance.”

— Steven Rowley

31. “The sky is not going to fall. That’s what I’m telling you. The pain you feel, the disaster you think is imminent. Those feelings fade. And some days you even miss it. Some days you miss the pain, because you’re afraid. Afraid that as the pain softens so do memories of the one you lost.”

— Steven Rowley

32. “The very best thing about dogs is how they just know when you need them most, and they’ll drop everything that they’re doing to sit with you awhile. I.”

— Steven Rowley

33. “We’re hyper-connected, but at the same time desperately lonely. We’re overstimulated by bright lights in our face all the time and the promise of more and more content, more and more people to follow, but we’re also numb, scrolling and scrolling past images we don’t even take the time to recognize, or form a cognizant thought about what they’re saying.”

— Steven Rowley

34. “The books were easy to restack, but he pulled a few titles to donate, anyhow. Books should be an experience, he thought, not a trophy for having read them.”

— Steven Rowley

35. “I don’t remember anything but betrayal. The sharp realization that Lily is the octopus. That she has been deceiving me all along.”

— Steven Rowley

36. “I don’t understand how my life got so empty, or why the octopus came, or why everyone eventually goes away.”

— Steven Rowley

37. “Grief orbits the heart. Some days the circle is greater. Those are the good days. You have room to move and dance and breathe. Some days the circle is tighter. Those are the hard ones.”

— Steven Rowley

38. “Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,” Patrick had said. “Aim higher.”

— Steven Rowley

39. “Why do you like boys?” Grant asked sourly, but with slightly more boredom than judgment. “I don’t know, why do you like pizza?” “Because it tastes good in my mouth.” Patrick wasn’t about to go anywhere near that.”

— Steven Rowley

40. “Los Angeles is a Neverland of Lost Boys who preen and crow far too often and demonstrate substance far too seldom. I.”

— Steven Rowley

41. “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single one, and the life of that candle will not be shortened. That’s what you do for others. You light their candle with yours.”

— Steven Rowley

42. “It’s nice, the stars. They make me feel unimportant. In a good way. Like my problems don’t matter. They’re not problems. I’m not anything. Just insignificant bits of star dust.”

— Steven Rowley

43. “What was the last day you were a child?”

— Steven Rowley

44. “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.” – OSCAR WILDE.”

— Steven Rowley

45. “And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase. She.”

— Steven Rowley

46. “I can sit with her quietly, our bodies touching just enough to generate warmth, to share the vibrating energy of all living things, until our breathing slows and falls into the parallel rhythm it always does when we have our quietest sits. I.”

— Steven Rowley

47. “It was the thing Patrick missed most about youth, the assumption that everything would just work itself out. That and his back not hurting.”

— Steven Rowley

48. “Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What’s the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there’s still time? Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going? But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here? How do you stand? How do you breathe? How do you go on?”

— Steven Rowley

49. “I do not offer one to Jenny.”

— Steven Rowley

50. “I used to be scared of anger, and that’s because I bottled it up inside. Not anymore! It’s like vomiting after drinking too much. Sure, it’s unpleasant in the moment, but then you feel so much better! Anger is beautiful if you express it just right. Let it out.”

— Steven Rowley