some quotes collected over the years
I look forward to the Great Adventure, which now can not be far off, with awe, but not with apprehension. I enjoy my work, my home, my friends, my life. I shall be sorry to part with them. But always I have stood in the bow looking forward with hopeful anticl– pation to the life before me. When the time comes for my embarkation, and the ropes are cast off and I put out to sea. I think I shall still be standing in the bow and still looking forward with eager curiosity and glad hopefulness to the new world to which the unknown voyage will bring me.
Most likely from a sermon by Lyman Abbott
“What does it feel like to eat without worry? Without a voice constantly quacking and crying inside your head?”
John Schu, Louder Than Hunger
“Why do we choose partners so different from ourselves? It’s not fate or chance or cliches like, “the heart wants what the heart wants”. We choose our partners because they represent the unfinished business from our childhood. And we choose them because they manifest the qualities we wish we had. In doing so, in choosing such a challenging partner and working to give them what they need, we chart a course for our own growth.”
Modern Family
Honesty is easy when it’s the last choice you have.
Cory Richards, The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
Time is the most used word in the English language, and it’s such a tricky thing. There are finite number of times we get to do anything, and after the first time, it’s a count. We only get to look at the sky so many times in our life. There are a finite number of rainstorms and seasons that will witness, and the number seems so big until it doesn’t.
We never know when will be the last time we taste something or see someone or do anything at all, and for all the money in the world, time is not for sale, no matter what the doctors say when we beg for more of it toward the end, finally seeing that we forgot to count the raindrops.
Cory Richards, The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
This moment is a single grain of sand and will be suspended forever in the neck of the hourglass of my life. I am at once the same and different as overlapping versions of myself—my life bisected by a great swath of snow.
Cory Richards, The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
“Learn from your past and be better because of your past,” she would say, “but don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.”
Trevor Noah, Born a Crime
Hurting yourself is easy; living is hard.
Loudermilk
I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I’m bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass, because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is; it’s not an adventure. There’s no way to do it so wrong you might die. It’s just work, and the bottom line is some people are okay going to work, and some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose.
Dr. Wong, Rick and Morty
“Running has taught me that the pursuit of a passion matters more than the passion itself. Immerse yourself in something deeply and with heartfelt intensity—continually improve, never give up—this is fulfillment, this is success.”
Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man
“Avoiding discomfort is the world’s worst strategy because it requires choosing discomfort. For example, if you choose to avoid situations that make you anxious, you are choosing anxiety, and strengthening anxiety’s ability to control you. If you choose to avoid opportunities that trigger self-doubt, you are choosing self-doubt and convincing self-doubt it is right. . . . Do you want to feel anxiety while avoiding things that have meaning, or do you want to feel anxiety while you do them?
Kelly McGonigal, “How to Make Stress Your Friend”
“The most brutal and effective attacks are those that are hurled and detonated in the dark, quiet recesses of our minds. The ones that shake our deepest foundations, leaving us to question who we are and what we are truly fighting for.”
Anthony Chin-Quee, I Can’t Save You
“No more reacting to a life that happened to me. My approaches and responses to the daily changes were mine to craft. It would just take practice. After all, I was unlearning a lifetime of bad habits. So every day would be an exercise in self-preservation— making routines, asking for help, expressing gratitude, fulfilling small daily promises to myself, all so that I could make survival palpable, achievable”
Anthony Chin-Quee, I Can’t Save You
“An empty promise from an empty voice The fearful mind cannot accept its limits It shrieks and fleas before admitting ignorance Unable to face the threat against its identity”
Gregovich, to sleep in a sea of stars
“You are my sadness and my hope, and my love”
Vision, WandaVision
“We are mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors, showing one another what we can’t yet see.”
Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
“They’re not real. You get that, right? None of it is real. The critics aren’t real, the customers aren’t real because this isn’t real. You aren’t real. What… [laughs] Okay. Derek, why do you care about this people? They don’t care about you, none of them. They don’t even know you because you haven’t shown them. Every day you wake up and there’ll be less of you. You live your life for them and they don’t even see you. You don’t even see yourself. We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.”
Pig (the movie)
“To the child, abandonment by its parents is the equivalent of death.”
road less traveled
“This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness.”
road less traveled
“‘Promise me—’ ‘Nothing,’ she snapped instantly. ‘No promises. The universe promises us nothing; I extend the same to you.”
children of time
“What’s happened, happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It’s not an excuse to do nothing.”
tenet (the movie)
“But with adults I see absolutely no justification for setting other people’s views of what is good for them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves.”
the reader
But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It’s there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?
the reader
Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
the reader
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Marcus Aurelius
Accept your past without regrets. Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear.
unknown via tiny Buddha
“I do my thing and you do your thing.I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,And you are not in this world to live up to mine.You are you, and I am I,and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.If not, it can’t be helped.”
Frederick Salomon Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim)
“Wait wait, look around for a second. You notice? Notice what? It’s not so scary anymore.”
Gilmore Girls (Netflix season)