George R. R. Martin? Gloria Swanson? C. S. Lewis? A. A. Pape? Vada B. Reese? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A best-selling author once stated:
I have lived a thousand lives. I have loved a thousand loves.
This extraordinary achievement had been accomplished vicariously via reading. Fantasy and science fiction author George R. R. Martin has received credit for this statement. Martin is best known for creating the worlds of “Game of Thrones” and “Wild Cards”. Would you please help me to find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 2013 Texas A&M University held a two-day gathering honoring George R. R. Martin who had previously donated his manuscripts, books, and collectibles to the school’s Cushing Library. The festivities included a screening of the first episode of the upcoming third season of “Game of Thrones”. Martin spoke to the audience about his life. Boldface added the excepts by QI:1
The 64-year-old Martin described growing up poor but being able to go on fantastic adventures by reading science fiction and fantasy.
“That’s where I am today and why I’m here today, because of my love of books,” Martin said. “I was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. I grew up in the projects. I never went anywhere. But I have lived a thousand lives. I have loved a thousand loves. I’ve wandered distant worlds and seen the end of time because I read.”
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Reincarnation enthusiasts believe that they have literally lived many lives. In 1924 an article in “The Evening Sentinel” of Carlisle, Pennsylvania presented the thoughts of Scottish scientist Captain A. A. Pape:2
But Captain Pape goes the ordinary idea of reincarnation considerably more than one better by insisting that we not only have “lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths,” but that we have the faculty, when properly cultivated, of remembering more or less of those pre-existences.
In 1926 a newspaper in Buffalo, New York reported that Miss Vada B. Reese won ninth prize in a writing contest. Her piece mentioned another way in which one may experience many lives:3
“At the movies I have lived a thousand lives. Lives of romance and travel. I have lived through all ages and even in the future. There I find my ideals, my dream lovers, and strange lands which heretofore have existed only in my imagination.”
In 1930 a Des Moines, Iowa newspaper printed a letter from O. L. which contained the following lines:4
My dear, I’ve read a thousand books,
And so have lived a thousand lives.
Small wonder then that I can love
With flaming passion and sometimes
In tender fashion, too.
In 1939 a piece by Virginia Stanton in a Spokane, Washington newspaper referred to movies, books, and plays:5
I have lived a thousand lives. Impossible? No, not even improbable. I have lived a thousand years in every land. . . .
My secret? It is a magic carpet which I carry with me always. It is my recreation and my work. My carpet was woven by producers from their best movie film. It was lined by authors and playwrights with the cream of their book pages, the most dramatic of their play scripts.
In 1956 the famous actress Gloria Swanson published a piece supporting literacy:6
Think what the written word has brought us, who are more fortunate. We have lived a thousand lives in and through literature. The past and the future have been brought to us in the know.
In 1961 fantasy and theological author C. S. Lewis wrote the volume “An Experiment in Criticism” which included a thematically related passage about inhabiting a thousand fictional selves:7
But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.
In 2011 George R. R. Martin published “A Dance with Dragons” which is part of the fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire”. One of the characters employed a shortened version of the saying which mentioned lives but not loves:8
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one.”
In 2013 Martin delivered the quotation while speaking at Texas A&M University as mentioned at the beginning of this article:
“I grew up in the projects. I never went anywhere. But I have lived a thousand lives. I have loved a thousand loves. I’ve wandered distant worlds and seen the end of time because I read.”
In 2019 the “Chicago Tribune” reported that Martin won a literary prize. The newspaper printed a slightly altered version of the quotation using the word “walked” instead of “wandered”:9
Carl Sandburg Literary Award Winner
George R.R. Martin
“I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.”
In conclusion, George R. R. Martin deserves credit for the quotation about living, loving, wandering, and reading. Martin spoke the line in 2013. However, the general notion of living one thousand lives vicariously via movies, books, or plays was expressed earlier by a variety of people.
QI has examined other thematically related quotations. Here are links to three pertinent articles.
“I write because I want more than one life.” – Anne Tyler (1976)
“Fiction completes us, mutilated beings burdened with the awful dichotomy of having only one life and the ability to desire a thousand.” – Mario Vargas Llosa (1984 in Spanish)
“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived.” – Louis L’Amour (1989)
Image Notes: Painting titled “Romeo and Juliet” by Frank Dicksee circa 1884. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Cristinel Sava whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 2013 March 24, The Eagle, Fans swarm author’s appearances (Continuation title: MARTIN: Multiple events were sold out) by Allen Reed, Start Page A9, Quote Page A12, Column 3, Bryan-College Station, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1924 January 16, The Evening Sentinel, Tell Incidents of Former Lives, Quote Page 3, Column 1, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1926 September 30, Buffalo Evening News, Prize Winning Letters: Ninth Prize Letter, Quote Page 28, Column 3, Buffalo, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1930 March 11, The Des Moines Register, Over the Coffee by H. S. M., (Letter from O.L of Des Moines), Quote Page 20, Column 4, Des Moines, Iowa. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1939 March 19, The Spokesman-Review, Section: Magazine, High School Creative Writers Do Creditable Work, By Proxy by Virginia Stanton of Marycliff 1940, Quote Page 5, Column 2, Spokane, Washington. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1956 March 7, Evening Vanguard, Half Population On Earth Can’t Read or Write by Gloria Swanson (Written for United Press), Quote Page 6, Column 7, Venice, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2012 (First published 1961), An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis), Section: Epilogue, Quote Page 140 and 141, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. (Verified with Google Preview) ↩︎
- 2011, A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin, Book Five of A Song of Ice and Fire, Chapter: Bran, Quote Page 452, Bantam Books, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2019 October 6, Chicago Tribune, Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner, Section 1, Quote Page 18, Column 2, Chicago, Illinois. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎