I was asked to provide the quote for today's meeting.
Well! That was a task I welcomed. I immediately dove into my reading journal where I write down the sentences/phrases/paragraphs from books I'm reading that resonate with me.
Here were some of the things I found that I put on my short list for Quote Consideration.
"I tried to think of the things I'd be capable of doing while on fire and the list was fucking short "Jeff Somers (manuscript pages)
Nope, not quite the right tone for this meeting, but still, awesome.
"I'd spent half my life giving a clinic on how to fuck up in slow motion. I had slow motion fucking whiplash."Jeff Somers (manuscript pages)
Again probably not quite right for the meeting, but this should be on my tombstone for sure.
"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active form like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is now, right here and now."Mr. Rogers
Now we're getting closer. And it's impossible to go wrong with Mr. Rogers.
Again, not quite the right tone, but oh so apt for so many other meetings."When destiny wants to fuck with you, it can afford to be patient. Destiny has all the time in the world."Laura Lippman
"The only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that too."Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Probably a little too spiritual for a secular business meeting, but I love this quote, and I really love that book."The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up."
Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber
"Everytime we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is on the other side of it."Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Well, even though I love this quote and think about it often, it's clearly a non-starter at this secular meeting.
And then I found this one.
Books are the carriers of civilization.
Without books, history is silent,
literature dumb,
science crippled,
thought and speculation at a standstill.
--Barbara Tuchman
And I think it's perfect.
Do you have a saying taped up in your office that reminds you of the big picture?
80 comments:
These are all great. I especially love the Pastrix one, which I've never heard. I have so many taped and pasted and framed and written in dozens of places, but four I can see from right here that keep me going.
My favourite: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
-J.R.R. Tolkien
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
"The moment you're ready to quit is usually the moment right before a miracle happens. Don't give up."
And, somewhat more to the point:
"Just fu**ing do it."
(I might add that where the C and K are missing, the designer of the magazine I tore it from chose to place a photo of a some flowers, LOL).
To quotes, not so much about books, more about life and writing.
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
Writing is talking without sound, singing without score and dancing without movement and yet, it is all of them.
Me
Ha, the wrong two.
Slept to late.
Jumped in to fast.
"You've got the guilt anyway. Don't waste it." From "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," by Paul Mazursky
She was twenty-six ... with the wisdom of a much younger woman.
I have this:
Have the life, give the love, be the person right now, that you want to look back on.
Another Tolkein from me - 'Not all those who wander are lost'
I have carried this quote from The Garden of Proserpine with me for years:
'That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.'
I also have 'The rest is silence' from Hamlet tattooed across my clavicle.
A little off topic 'hello' to everyone - I was very active on this blog until just over a year ago. I've been off on maternity leave but am sadly now back in the office now. Silver lining is that I can pop back here on my lunch break. Will be catching up on posts, but probably not all the comments! I know what you guys are like!
"There is a reason it is called REsearch."
"The most exiting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."."
There are both stuck on the wall above my desk. Never fail to make me smile and nod. And while not originally writing related, both resonate with the writer-in-training that's hiding somewhere in me too ("That's funny..." sounds more like "Idiot! Why didn't you think of it earlier?" though).
All from my MAN, GK Chesterton:
“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” – On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908
“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” – A Short History of England, Ch.10
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.” – ILN, 7/16/10
“The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” – Daily News, 4-22-05
“A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.” – Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox
“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” – The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21
“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” – Introduction to the Book of Job, 1907
I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS.
I'm at work at the moment, so the only things I see on my wall are "Emergency and security procedures" and a couple of service awards. At home I have a some inspirational quotes. One of these was a sub-header for a while ("The only way to do great work is to love what you do"), and another is from the professor who mentored me through my M.Div. commending my writing and telling me I ought to write when I get through with my course work.
While hunting down the old sub-header quote, I came across this classic piece of Janet Reid, recalling our meeting at Bouchercon 2015:
Yea, Colin was so boring, we called the police to report he was missing when he was actually sitting at the table.
I should have that one framed. :)
Anyway, here's a "big picture" quote that's not on my wall, but on my heart daily:
"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." (Philippians 2:3)
Perhaps not exactly what you had in mind, Janet, but that's the best I've got. :)
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on." Paul McCartney
Here's another:
It's never to late to be who you might have been.
George Elliot
And another:
Your struggles define your achievements.
(?) I read it here.
My favorite quote at the moment is from my daughter's tennis coach: "Don't look for W's [wins], just bring it!"
"How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in heaven." Robert Heinlein
And plenty of delicious Raymond Chandler not on my wall but in my head where I keep most stuff. On my wall is the Arthur Rackham poster of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party which always makes me think of life in Ireland (and believing six impossible things before breakfast.) Plus Edward Gorey's 17 cats of Maple Street which makes me think of Robert Heinlein.
From the Epiplectic Bicycle
"Beware of this and that."
Mine favorite one is long, but I say this almost every morning before starting work:
Glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with Gratitude and Joy, considering it an honor to employ and develop, by means of labor, the gifts received from God,
Disregarding difficulties and weariness, to work, above all, with purity of intentions and with detachment from self, having always before my eyes Death, and the account which I must render, of time wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God.
All for Jesus, all for Mary, all after your example, patriarch Joseph. This will be my watchword in life and in death.
I have two sayings.
They are aberrations of two classics but fit my glass half empty view of life.
"Whatever doesn't kill me, just pisses me off.
and
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them commit suicide."
I have others, but they aren't as nice and fluffy as these two.
Love this
Yes. Profound in its simplicity.
Mine are at home, I'm at the office, but the one that has stuck with me through the ages is from Dickens and along the lines of "every man is a mystery to others". I wonder constantly, "what the hell were they thinking?".
I have a myriad of favorites that decorate the walls around my writing area. Some are comforting. Most are warnings. Like Janet, I have so many that listing them all would be excessive. My favorite is the poem “The Desiderata” which I will not quote here. The others I keep about for inspiration and sanity.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
C.S. Lewis
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
― George Orwell, 1984 (Greatest opening line ever)
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
Rudyard Kipling
Gods of the Copybook Headings
(a source for famous Tolkien poem in Lord of the Rings)
Oh, I do have a Tolkien quote tattooed on my back of my left shoulder in elven script no less:
"Not all who wander are lost"
So that one is with me all the time.
The one I have up at work (I'm a marketing copywriter): "Less but better."
The newest non-work advice piece that's setting up shop in my brain is from a recent GQ longform article:
"'We want to life our life. That's what our plans are.'
I asked him what his life would look like once he started living it."
And a few others:
"You make mistakes because you're focusing on the target and not on your actions." (from archery, but good for life in general)
"If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit." -Banksy
"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects." -Einstein (according to the internet, so...)
"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." -Chuck Palahniuk
"You are responsible for your own happiness."
And, since most of my favorite quotes are aggressive (i.e. "you're either making progress or making excuses"), I'll end with one that's a little kinder: "Dead Last is greater than Did Not Finish which trumps Did Not Start."
This one is at the bottom of my emails and in a frame on my wall. I pinched it from a dear friend years ago and it describes me very well:
There are only two groups of people in this world that hear voices in their heads-schizophrenics and writers...and sometimes, the line between the two is VERY thin.
Let's see....I have a number of NASA's space tourism posters taped up, and the old Science Fiction and Fantasy sign from that section in my library.
I also have E. E. Cummings' "maggie and milly and molly and may" and used to have (or maybe it's buried) "A ship in harbor os safe--but that is not what ships or built for." John A. Shedd
"Time just gets away from us."
Mattie Ross of near Dardenelle in Yell County. (Or Charles Portis)
I've got this one up in my office -
"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." - Suzy Kassem
I just wrote a blog post about this next quote, and it's one I need to tell myself more often than I'd like to admit -
"Buck up, sissy pants." - from The Big Bang Theory
“I am not fond of strangers…For they ever take, and seek to change, what is not theirs from the beginning.” --The Warriors of Uortrenes.
Hunk: When you come home, don't go by Miss Gulch's place. Then Toto won't get in her garden, and you won't get in no trouble, see?--The Wizard of Oz.
Anything by John Lennon.
Various others too numerous to mention.
From Douglas Adams-
"Don't panic"
Several years ago, someone posted this cartoon here and it made me laugh and still does
https://islandeditions.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/969130_10151777434609026_1827903172_n.jpg
This Albert Camus quote is the story of my life and what has gotten me through some very hard seasons...
"In the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger--something better--pushing right back."
And this from Doctor Who maybe changed my life once upon a time and is coming in pretty handy in recent days:
"You don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away."
Love this thread so much.
Kregger said
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them commit suicide."
which seems like a good time to post this again
Kari Dell's blog post on sheep
To this day, 8 years later it makes me laugh.
Now THAT is good writing.
"The grass is always greener over the septic tank, but it's just as hard to mow." ~~ Erma Bombeck
The world works in strange ways, I was just trying desperately to find that Bolz-Weber quote. Thank you!
I am never owning sheep!
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl
I'm going to have to illuminate and frame Barbara Tuchman's quote and give it to my sister. She was a school librarian until this year, when her school administration decided librarians aren't necessary. They did give her the job of 7th grade reading teacher, but there's no one running the school library now. Of course, since they forced her to weed 2/3rds of the collection a couple of years ago, they could be right about not needing a librarian. :P
Sheep! This is why the lion does not concern itself with the opinion of sheep.
"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story." - Barney Stinson
And here's one from boot camp
Sweat dries
Blood clots
Bones heal
Suck it up, Buttercup
Love this thread, the funny and sentimental alike and Nadia Bolz-Weber.
The quotes that have stayed with me?
From John Donne: no man is an island entire of itself
From ee cummings: i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
And from George MacLeod: once more to give thanks: for earth and sea and sky in harmony of colour, the air of the eternal seeping through the physical, the everlasting glory dipping into time. We praise Thee.
The trick is this: Keep your eye on the ball. Even when you can't see the ball. -- Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All.
And this one is a wrongly remembered but better this way Jimmy Buffet line: The course that's hard still steers.
I'm a quote freak. The ones that resonate, for me, are about our relationship with nature.
"Nature possesses the secret of happiness, and no one has been able to steal it from her." ~George Sand (love her)
And from one of my absolute favorite authors - her writing makes me sigh and weep - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: "But what of the land? It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives of itself in response to love and tending, offers its seasonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors. [The land] belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time."
E.M. I grew up with Desiderata framed and hanging on the wall of our kitchen. I had it memorized as a teenager. Which falls in line with original quotes from my daddy. This is one of my favs and was repeated frequently throughout my childhood: When my siblings and I were asked to clean up trash at a roadside picnic table before we ate our own meal, we all grumbled in teen crabbiness and Rex admonished, "Maybe this isn't about you. Maybe this is about making the world a better place."
Melanie I knew I liked you:) And we're in same neck of the woods, I think. Georgia? My grandmother had Desiderata hanging in her kitchen. She gave it to me when I left for college. I had memorized it as well. I still have it hanging over my writing desk all these many years later.
Always store beer in a cool, dark place.
I came across this quote in one of my favourite books - Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters. It comes so very close to how I feel about writing and reading:
"Words were indeed insubstantial. They were as soft as water, but they were also as powerful as water and now they were rushing over the audience, eroding the levees of veracity, and carrying away the past."
"One day you will make enough money from writing to quit high tech."
Of course, I had to make it unplottable or some people would freak out.
There are a handful of quotes hanging in my mental office that I consider regularly. These include a quote by Tolkien[1], the two great commandments[2], and one from Pogo[3].
[1] "'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"
[2] "Love God with every bit of your being. Just as importantly, love your neighbor as yourself (implying you must love yourself, preferably as God does)".
[3] "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent!" Some days I replace that with "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"
In my kitchen:
"Writing teaches writing." John McPhee
In my head:
"No matter where you go, there you are." from 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Across the 8th Dimension'
In my heart:
“I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has never been in a play. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture.” Tom Stoppard
This line from Guy Clark's "The Cape" got me off my duff to start writing my novel:
He did not know he could not fly and so he did
Joseph Snoe: great quote!
Along with writing, I also practice aikido. A dojo I sometimes visit has a big, gorgeous piece of Japanese calligraphy on the wall, in a fancy frame and hung in a very prominent spot. The first time I was there I asked what it said, expecting to hear some piece of wisdom from O-Sensei (the founder of aikido) or a traditional Japanese saying of some sort. The translation?
"Shut up and train."
I'm feeling inspired. And entertained. :)
The truth I have to remind myself of several times a week is this:
Comparison is the thief of joy.
I mostly need this in my writing life, but of course it applies across the board.
"I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one." - Calamity Jane
and
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt
One of my closest friends says this all the time, and as she's almost always happy, I'm sure it holds the secret to world peace: woof! Other ones I hear a lot is, "meow, meow." I could be wrong but those sound more like world domination quotes.
Illegitimi non carborundum,
and
"Cause, remember: no matter where you go... there you are." Buckaroo Banzai.
irreverent, but I gotta be me.
Cheers Hank
(Great comments everyone, love this group.)
When I'm writing?
"Be so good they can't ignore you." ~ Steve Martin
My favorite, posted on my home computer (on a sticky note):
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
"Beyond the age of information, there is the age of choices." -Charles Eames
"Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless." -Julia Cameron
My favorite is the beginning of a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. It starts with:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."
This always reminds me of past jobs or projects I have been involved with where the subject or client or job is not going well and the people in charge don't see it. They think they are right and everyone else is wrong. I see this all too often today.
Don't worry. Be happy.
Bobby McFerrin
But if we're talking about about books and writing --
In the beginning, there was the word ...
The Bible
2ns - it made my heart happy to see my Mom's words of wisdom pop up again.
I have a few non family quotes thatve stuck with me. About publishing: a person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.
- Edna st. Vincent Millay
And as for life quotes I have two favorites
Well behaved women rarely make history - laurel thatcher Ulrich
One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself what if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again? - Rachel carson
Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.
--Serbian proverb
Oh, now I am on a quote roll (with butter and jam).
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow stronger.
-W.B. Yeats
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
-Jalaluddin Rumi
Throw up in your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.
-Raymond Chandler
Thanks for this post, Janet, which prompted such wonderful replies. I think we all needed this today.
I have many quotes tucked away in many files. Some are from books, some from people. But my very favorite quote comes from a movie that some people didn't think amounted to much; "Joe vs the Volcano" starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It struck me like a hurricane:
It was a scene on a large sailboat in the middle of the ocean at night while they were contemplating life.
It goes:
"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."
I knew right then that I was one of those who were awake.
Well, I don't have an office right now, but I have a home. On my bedroom wall are a couple of skiing posters:
"Deep is a family value" is on one.
But in the living room, the one from Mother Teresa is the one I hope my kids will at some level take in:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
-Nemo
Janet: On the sheep post - Gracie is rolling in laughter, saying, "Depressing sheep thoughts..."
Don't borrow trouble.
Promise only what you can deliver.
These are both posted on my laptop. (To remind me about two of my greatest challenges).
Thanks for all for great posts. I'll return to these comments often!
"Most agents live lives of quiet desperation."
"Literary quality is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
"Don't bother with my royalty check. Give it all to the Salvation Army."
OK, OK those are fake. And these are REAL quotes:
"Fiction is lies ... and more lies."
-Stephen King, DANSE MACABRE (this is my favorite)
"If God were a novelist, the universe would be fictitious."
- real; quote but source unreemembered.
"I wonder if she ever had an orgasm, or if she was just faking that night."
- Woody Allen
Interesting that you should mention Mr. Rogers. He has a cameo role in my WIP. The premise is, there is so much crime even Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is riddled with it.
And he is upside down on his mortgage, sohe can't leave.
Here's a nice one:
"One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."
-Reinette Poisson in "The Girl in the Fireplace" (Doctor Who).
Colin, of course I misread the last word in yours as "agent."
Alcohol...the cause of and solution to all of life's problems
Homer Simpson
Theresa: Depends on the agent, I guess... ;)
Colin, your quote reminded me of a more recent Doctor Who tidbit that I've come to love a great deal.
"Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege."
Kari Lynn Dell's blog made me laugh.
My take: Always let sleeping horses lie.
and
Too stupid to sheep.
I'm staring at a blank wall. The next wall? A larger amount of blank space. Hm. I love all these quotes--I just have nothing to add.
What's the opposite of hoarder? I'll be that. ("Minimalist" seems like too long of a word. Should just be min.)
So, a Min. Amen.
JD(Manuscript)Frain
A min, huh? You know, I'm pretty sure min is short for minion. (I sure know a toddler or two who thinks so) *wicked grin* I'm certain the QOTKU could use another minion to pin all of these quotes.
Those darn minions. But it was worth it to see your wicked grin, Megan. Keep that on, you wear it well!
Omg, I love all these quotes. I have far too many to choose from, but here are a few favorites:
"I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."
—Woody Allen
"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon."
—Woody Allen
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul."
—Kahlil Gibran
"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We are afraid."
"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We will fall!"
"Come to the edge."
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
"I want to be an honest man and a good writer." - James Baldwin
As an astronomer and citizen scientist I am sooo not into the horoscope thing. However, I came across this in the newspaper one day. Forget what 'the stars' say, this is good advice for anyone:
"Gemini: you must be decisive and put your ideas to use. Don't muck around wasting time. Change course if you have to, but do something. Weigh the pros and cons, then your choice will be clear."
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