Favorite Quotes

More Quotes from Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

~ Quotes from Steve Jobs

iSad

2011-10-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

– Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.... Don't settle."

- Commencement address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

-Stanford commencement speech, June 2005

Ask Me Why I Hurt

2011-07-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Phoenix pediatrician Randy Christensen recounts the past decade spent treating Arizona's homeless youth, including the burdens cared by youth, and by the professionals who wish they could do more for them:

"We're sorry," they said - and behind their voices I heard budget cuts, and high caseloads, and people sick with stress themselves over all the help they wished they could give...

Under that hope was a terrible black fear. It was the fear of everything that had ever happened to her...

2011-05-05T16:23:00.001-07:00

Unfinished by nofearinlove on Polyvore.com

Free Scrapbooking Software Templates Embellishments Backgrounds
$12 - scrapbookflair.com

Two of my favorite illustrations

2011-04-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

The Fadeaway Girls were the hallmark of Coles Phillip's career (1880-1927). The idea of the fade-away leaves the viewer to fill in the extra information toward completion of the picture.

Why programs like Getting Ahead and Bridges Out of Poverty are so very important

2011-03-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

Quotes about growing up in poverty from Joe Queenan's autobiographical book, Closing Time:

"All but the most perceptive of children find poverty incomprehensible, because poverty is idiotic. Further confusing the issues is the fact that poverty comes in several distinct varieties. From the start, my sisters and I had trouble figuring out which branch of indigence we were experiencing... Mostly what we endured was intermittent deprivation - poverty, yes, but not abject destitution."

"The poverty my family experienced was grinding, dull and monotonous - the traditional one-size fits all, no-frills variety. We did not have enough food. We rarely ate fresh fruit or vegetables; everything came out of a can. We had crummy toys....wore hand-me-down clothes and shoes that did not fit... did not have a car (or) telephone."

"Poverty, conceptually as well as viscerally, suffers from a mythology concocted by those who were never poor."

"Libertarians, self-made men, and sage pundits believe that money can make any problem disappear, that if one merely puts enough cash into the hands of the poor, they would draw on the prodigious reserves of wisdom and enterprise they'd been clandestinely stockpiling for so many years and make all the right choices needed to turn their lives around."

"Adherents to this school of thought have difficulty grasping that poverty is as much as state of mind as an economic condition, a pathology that encourages the poor to make bad decisions... Poverty becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"It might not be your fault that you were born poor, but somewhere along the way, you've certainly mastered the art of behaving like a poor person."

"Poverty goes beyond not having money or food. Poverty means that when you do have money and food, the money gets spent unwisely, and the food is not nutritious."

"Poverty is not simply a matter of being able to buy certain things; it's about buying the wrong things, or the things that nobody wants. It's about off-brand shoes, off-brand underwear, off-brand socks, off-brand ice cream, off-brand appliances, off-brand roach killer.

"It's about sneakers that fall apart the third time you drive to the basket, shoes held together with adhesive tape, shirts that start out as XLs but end up as Mediums the first time they're laundered. It's about socks that aren't worth mending, jeans that aren't worth patching, appliances that aren't worth fixing..."

(in the author's point-of-view:) "Poor people behave stupidly because poverty is a finishing school where children learn how to be stupid."

"Growing up poor teaches young people to buy clothing that shrinks, appliances that break, furniture the disintegrates, food that provides no nutrition - and, if possible, to overpay for it."

"Poverty is a tumor it takes a lifetime to excise, because poverty is lodged inside the brain in a dark corner where the poor don't want to look."

An apology is worthless - unless....

2011-01-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

"An apology is worthless unless it's converted into new action."

~ Tony Gaskins

Don't Give Up Too Soon

2010-08-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

‎"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

~Albert Einstein

Teens and Power Struggles

2010-03-01T07:34:00.001-08:00

"Kids are just trying to figure out the shape of the world. Picture them like a blind person in a room: they're just going up against the wall; the wall is the boundary you've set for them. They're trying to figure out the shape of the world by banging into the boundaries you've presented. This is why kids that don't get any rules get so freaked out; the world has no shape to it."

~ Adam Savage

2010-02-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

"Shhh... Do you hear that? That's the sound of forgiveness."

~ Llamas With Hats

Action is Better Than Passivity

2010-02-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Developing an Elastic Head

2010-02-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

Lisa Dickson has hit enough walls in her life to develop an Elastic Head: "Give me your bureaucracies. Give me your behind-the-door politics. Give me your staff caught captive by fear of reprisal if they speak out." Hey, World Changers -- we can and we will Make A Difference!!

2010-02-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

"There will be a moment in your life when you realize that you've made it through the fire and survived - and all you can feel is grateful. Love - when you'd never had love. Security - when you've never known the meaning of security. This is YOUR LIFE. This is what life has for you. Don't - Let - Go!"

~ Lisa Dickson

Early Valentine's Day card from my husband

2010-02-07T05:44:00.001-08:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Hilarious!!

2010-02-07T05:02:00.001-08:00

New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

Change Can Be Messy

2010-02-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

"But remember this: I never suggested that change would be easy. Or that I could do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passion and controversy. That's just how it is."

~ Barack Obama, State of the Union, January 27, 2010

Stand up or shut up

2010-01-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I am watching our President give the State of the Union Address, and understanding why he now has much more gray hair now than he used to...

It can age the soul, working SO hard EVERY day to address what is wrong and build pathways to what is RIGHT.

People from the Past vs. Hope in the Future

2010-01-27T17:42:00.001-08:00

“There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters, who never did, who won’t anymore, and who always will. So don’t worry about people from your past, there’s a reason why they didn’t make it to your future.”

~Sabina Muhammed

Choices that we DO and do not have

2010-01-17T17:16:00.000-08:00

"It is not within our power to end all corruption - but we can CHOOSE not to be corrupt. It is not within our power to end all injustice - but we can advocate for what is right. We cannot change the course of the sea - but with every stream that we are able to re-route, we CAN and DO make a difference."

~ Lisa Dickson

Can't do everything - CAN do Something!!!

2010-01-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

"I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

~ Edward Everett Hale

Kim's Radio Interview

2010-01-06T19:14:00.001-08:00

2009-12-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

"At the deepest part of my heart, I am a perfectionist who wishes she could walk on water, and provide a lifeboat for EVERY young person emerging from foster care to adulthood.

"But, some days, I get pulled in by the undertow. Fortunately, even during those moments when my head is submerged under water, it’s okay – because I know how to swim, and I can keep on kicking until I reach the surface."

~ Lisa Dickson

And, when we say NO, they won't be happy about it

2009-12-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

"We need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity."

~Barbara De Angelis

(And when we say "No," they won't cheer for us! Nope, they will probably be mad at us, and resent it. And that has to be okay... we have to accept that).

Starting where you are today -- to make a difference

2009-12-19T16:49:00.001-08:00

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” - Maria Robinson

We never come fully to ourselves -- until life makes its demands on us

2009-12-18T17:23:00.001-08:00

"You become strong by doing the things you need to be strong for"
~Audre Lorde~

The Truth 2010

2009-12-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

Deep down, we survivors share the same passion to make a difference.

Maybe we try to run from it. Maybe we try to fill our needs with something else (or somebody).

But, when the distractions are over, one thing remains - I CAN MAKE THIS BETTER.

~ Lisa Dickson

A Mindset Can Be A Prison

2009-12-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

"Sometimes a mindset is the worst prison that somebody can be trapped in. Don't finish the work that someone in your past did in trying to destroy you. Survive and thrive."

~ Lisa Dickson

Never give up - never surrender!!

2009-12-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

"When it comes to life legacies and historical movements:

"Nothing of true worth, beauty and lasting value ever comes easy. Stop expecting it to. We're gonna have to work for it - and with time, tact, patience and perseverence, we can make it happen."

~ Lisa Dickson

2009-11-16T17:30:00.000-08:00

I would rather be happy and messy than perfect and miserable.

- Shannon Lakes

Words of Wisdom and Perspective

2009-11-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

"Always help others find their strengths, always give back to those who need your counsel, and above all make sure others can succeed. You're not an island but a piece of all the good things people have given you over the years."

~ Brandon Ruse

I promise you - not a moment will be lost

2009-11-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

"I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will walk again together with a thousand others & a thousand more & on & on until there is no one among us who does not know the truth: there is no future without love."

~ Brian Andreas

Antidote to the Venom of Vipers

2009-10-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Vipers are people who do not yet realize or want to admit that their choices are the root of their pain. Until they come to that realization and are ready to make better choices, it is easier for them to lash out at safe and easy targets. Their lashing out does not mean we did not do everything we could do or say to help, it just means they are not ready to fix the problem."

~ Jackie Lee

Just Say No to Emotional Manipulation

2009-09-15T11:12:00.001-07:00

I'm not your Pal Pal.

And I'm no longer user-friendly.

~ (Hybrid of Shelley and Manish's insights)

A better time investment

2009-09-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

"Those who spend time solving problems spend very little time complaining about them." ~ Michael Sanders

Quote from the TV show "Leverage:"

2009-08-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

"You're different. You fight like something's trying to get out of you."

Quote from SunshineGirlOnARainyDay

2009-08-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Character isn't fate - it's an accumulation of decisions.

Each day and every day:

- Our thoughts direct our decisions
- Our decisions are reflected in our actions.
- Our actions evolve into our habits.
- Our habits reveal our character.
- Our character determines our destiny.

Another great quote, thanks to Brandon Ruse

2009-06-02T07:11:00.001-07:00

"Extraordinary individuals take one step back and two steps forward with most every challenge—and sometimes two steps back to one step forward. They harvest useful lessons and knowledge from what doesn’t work, and they display a remarkable resiliency; and ability to bounce back from adversity."

- Jerry Porras

Hope begins in the dark

2009-06-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up."

-Anne Lamott

Wabi-Sabi

2009-05-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death.

Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud.

It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time.

Lyrics to "Shine" by Jan Krist

2009-02-27T08:42:00.000-08:00

She buries the problems
but they grow and bloom again
No one need see them
She will deftly pretend
Playing her high cards
Best foot forward every time
For who will love her
if she does not shine?

Hopelessness dogs her
but she will not give in
She will reason fear away again
A full and leaky vessel
She hides the cracks behind
For who will love her
if she does not shine?

She tries to pull herself
from difficult requests
Works to be satisfied
with just doing her best
'Til someone doubts her courage
and she struggles with resign
For who will love her
if she does not shine?

She tries to pull herself
from rejection's debris
And the more she pulls
the less she seems to be free
When did this all begin?
Was there one point in time?
And who will love her
if she does not shine?

Who will love her? Shining
Who will love her? Shining
Who will love her
if she does not shine?

In the immediacy of the moment

2009-01-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Quote from TV show House:

House: “Are you gonna base your whole life on who you got stuck in a room with?”

Response from patient: “I’m gonna base this moment on who I’m stuck in a room with. That’s what life is. It’s a series of rooms. And who we get stuck in those rooms with adds up to what our lives are.”

Obama Inauguration

2009-01-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

National Call to Action:

"What free men and woman can achieve when imagination is tied to purpose."

Glimpse Into Obama's Character and Motivations:

"Nothing so satisfying to our spirit or defining to our character than taking on a difficult task."

And from the Inaugural Poem:

"Love that casts a widening pool of light..."

Don't take your emotions too seriously at the end of the day

2008-11-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

"At the end of the day, everything looms larger. Small problems burn in importance, and terror lurks in the darkening shadows."

- Janice Kaplan, A Job to Kill For

BUT

"Anything and everything is possible in the morning."

- Kristin Gore, Sammy's Hill

Quotes from Edward R. Murrow

2008-10-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts."

"To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful."

"Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information."

"Fame is morally neutral."

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them."

"Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit."

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

Definition of Courage

2008-10-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

"The hardest conditions are the ones in which the hero's mettle is truly tested."

- "Prosperity is self-correcting."

- Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature

The wisdom of Muppets

2008-06-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Sing
Sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad

Sing
Sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Sing
Sing a song

La la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la

Sing
Sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad

Sing
Sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Sing
Sing a song

- song from Sesame Street, written by Joe Raposo

My husband, talking about the Beatles

2008-05-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

Photo of my stepdaughters Rachel and Carly.

"People know genius when they hear it and when they see it.

"It takes genius to pioneer a new art form or genre - and those people are extremely rare."

The wisdom of comedians

2008-05-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

"Success cannot be defined, because the top of the mountain is clouded in vapor."
- Christian Thom

"When you're a minority in any situation, you are representing the community."
- Veronica Moser

My husband regarding the reality show Survivor

2008-05-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

"That show is a mockery of survival. It's a farce. People cannot survive in isolation. You don't survive by playing King of the Mountain. Historically, people have survived only by banding together."

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you

2008-04-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

"Your perception of the world colors how you organize all the information that assaults you every day."

- Lori Andrews, Sequence

Notes from Nethers on saying goodbye

2008-04-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

- "And then they were all gone, with scant or no goodbye from me. I felt that refusing to be involved with them was my best weapon. What I didn't know yet was that shutting down is a weapon that turns on the one who uses it.

"By withholding, I harmed only myself, as if love were an unrenewable resource, as if in loving even when we lose, we don't learn the better to love. I didn't know that love that flows freely is not lost, but circles around and comes back again to fill the heart, no matter the distance.

"I was losing more than I needed to. In refusing to let go - to give anything - neither could I receive..."

- "As an adolescent, I suppose I needed to be the one to push away. I was fifteen and hurt and angry, disconcerted by the intensity of my own feelings, and at a loss about how to deal with them, and at sea in my own life."

- "I rarely get the chance to say goodbye to people... Even with casual goodbyes, there is always the uncertainty of whether we will see each other again. This urgency is very alive in my heart. I strive to say what I need to say to people as immediately as I can."

- Sandra Lee Eugster, Notes from Nethers

Notes from Nethers on independence

2008-04-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

- "My foothold sometimes felt fragile. It wasn't only about the unpredictability of how people acted - it was something about repeatedly having to retreat from them to feel safe."

- "Oddly, I am many things opposite to what I would expect from one who spent formative years on a commune, and I am reminded of the dialectic; how one extreme breeds the other. I am private and reserved to a fault... which makes it hard for people to know me.

"I am ruthlessly disciplined, finding it no problem to regiment myself for work or pastrime. I am completely counter-dependent. It is very difficult for me to let go of a fundamental, hard-won self-sufficiency. This is problematic in that it limits my range of intimacy...

"And finally, I am crushingly over-responsible, with one glaring exception."

- Sandra Lee Eugster, Notes from Nethers

This one goes out to all the meaning-makers out there...

2008-03-05T12:46:00.001-08:00

"The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys."

- Daniel Pink, Author, A Whole New Mind

Hunger, Love and the Search for Home

2008-02-26T14:47:00.000-08:00

Quotes from "Trail of Crumbs" by Kim Sunee:

- About her boyfriend: "Suddenly I can't find the words in any language to tell Oliver that it's not an honor to be 'adopted' again and again and that he can't just order me an identity, create an instant history. He doesn't seem to grasp that my past is the one thing he can't conquer or fix."

- About her stepdaughter: "I wonder how it is that I have become a makeshift mother, this clueless substitute. Do I have the right to discipline her? What can I possibly teach her besides the comfort of food, the gifts of the table, the importance of language and the unique strangeness of being a foreigner?"

- About her therapist: "It is thanks to sessions with him that I can start to give shape to the pain caused by this constant need for departure. This crazy idea that I must keep running in order to survive, in order not to be loved too much or not enough. Running so I will never have to deal with someone not wanting to keep me."

- About her relationship problems: "I repeated my own abandonment, preempting another absence - the fear of being left again, this time by someone I have grown so attached to, a real family."

Quotes from Nellie McKay

2008-02-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

- "The more fame and money you acquire, it gives you more power, and there are a lot of things I’d like to change about this world. Celebrity and wealth are some of the biggest weapons for social change because most people who have them don’t use them for anything but Versace."

- "It can be very hard to get behind movements you feel excluded from. At a certain point, the people in power should reflect the people they represent."

Just discovered Nellie McKay's music

2008-02-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

Wait for me

2008-02-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

Wayne by Chantal Kreviazuk: This song is very powerful... there is Lolita quality to the video that creeps me out a bit.

But what I hear more than anything else in this song is the sting of abandonment. Little girl laying out the dirty laundry for all to see. Father-hungry and fearful; forsaken and alone...

I agree with another blogger that, "Conventional wisdom tells us that, in order for a story to be believable, it must be written from experience," and that the reason that Chantal's music is able to cast aside any doubt of insincerity is her passion.

Reading Fiction

2007-12-27T06:13:00.000-08:00

"Literature is the ultimate virtual experience—a truly mind-expanding trip to other times and places, seen through the eyes of someone other than ourselves.

"Literature encourages us—requires us—to identify with other people in a way that differs from movies and from most nonfiction reading.

"Ideally, we engage our imaginations over an extended period of time, acquiring a vicarious experience that can be more intense and lasting than a movie, because of the time it takes and the amount that the reader contributes to the experience – much more interactive than a movie or anything the Internet has to offer.

"I think of literature as an expansive owner's manual for life – how to see the world through others' eyes, how to avoid other people's mistakes, how to be thankful and recognize something about the worst kinds of pain that you know you haven't been through, and how to survive if that day comes.

"You can experience the past, present, and future of humanity, sometimes all at once, and dwell within the experience."

- David, high school English teacher

Wisdom from Erika Klein

2007-11-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

"When you're battling for the most vulnerable - and up against the giants - it's important to take good care of yourself."

Quote from Rose Campbell

2007-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

"The people you allign yourself with
say a lot about your character."

Dancing in the Rain

2007-10-05T08:31:00.001-07:00

Quote from Tiffany Wilson at the 2007 It's My Life conference:

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,

It's about dancing in the rain."

2007-09-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

"WalMart’s amazing; they find a way to cheapen everything."

- Lewis Black. The Daily Show

Word by word...

2007-09-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

“We all begin to read as close readers. Even before we learn to read, the process of being read aloud to, and of listening, is one in which we are taking in one word after another, one phrase at a time, in which we are paying attention to whatever each word or phrase is transmitting. Word by word is how we learn to hear and then read, which seems only fitting, because it is how the books were are reading were written in the first place.

“The more we read, the foster we can perform that magic trick of seeing how the letters have been combined into words that have meaning. The more we read, the more we comprehend, the more likely we are to discover new ways to read, each one tailored to the reason why we are reading a particular book.

“At first, the thrill of our own brand-new expertise is all we ask or expect from Dick and Jane. But soon we being to ask what else those marks on the page can give us. We begin to want information, entertainment, invention, even truth and beauty. We concentrate, we skim, we skip words, put down the book and daydream, start over, reread. We finish a book and return to it years later to see what we might have missed, or the ways in which time and age have affected our understanding.”

- Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Sue Grafton has some zingers

2007-09-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

"Too many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth."

- Sue Grafton, L is for Lawless

I love what Loquacious posted about Madeleine

2007-09-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

"Godspeed, Madeleine L'Engle. If there's a there there, you know what to do. Your work is cut out for you. Be Named and know that I love you."

I liked this posting by Gingersnap as well:

"When she visited my small grade school in the late 80s, she was the first famous person and author that I had ever met, and it was quite a wonderful shock to discover that she was so human. That, more than anything else, made me believe that I actually might be able to be a writer someday. One of the best days of my childhood."

I had to totally agree with Kanolia, who posted:

"And there dies yet another piece of my childhood."

I was touched by Arctic Woman's confession:

"Why am I crying? Madeline L'Engle, you were so important to me. You taught 8-year-old me that the world was amazing, that science was interesting, and that I - using my mind - could be the hero of my own story. Thank you for all your gifts."

And this, from a writer identifying his/herself only as CMYK, was just funny and cool:

"I remember, during one of my many re-reads of A Wrinkle In Time, I sat down and thought about a tesseract. I visualized everything - the square, the cube, the cube squared - and for one brief perfect moment I got it. I could see the whole thing inside my head, backwards and forwards, and I understood how it worked. Then it slipped right back out of my skull, because a tesseract is an awfully big thing to stuff into a child's head. But for the moment I got it, it was awesome."

Source: http://www.metafilter.com/64499/A-In-Time

Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle on Love & Marriage

2007-09-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

-- "To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take."

-- "If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation."

(Both quotes from The Irrational Season, 47)

-- "Love isn't how you feel, it's what you do."

(Wind in the Door, 118)

-- "When we make ourselves vulnerable, we do open ourselves to pain, sometimes excruciating pain. The more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love."

(Penguins and Golden Calves, 20)

Saying goodbye to Madeleine L'Engle

2007-09-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

I just read the news today:

Madeleine L'Engle's books were an integral part of my childhood.

Like Vicky, from the Austin series, I was the sort of child who deeply analyzed everyone and everything in my surroundings, looking for some secret clue about how things worked.

Like Meg, from her Wrinkle in Time series, I went through an "ugly duckling" period while I was outgrowing my child-self. I also had a precocious little brother, who was somewhat like Charles Wallace. At the age of nine, I even went so far as to memorize the rune from A Swiftly Turning Planet, as I shall prove now by writing it entirely from memory:

"At Tara, in this fateful hour
I call on heaven with all its power
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightening with its rapid wrath
And the winds with swiftness along their path
And the sea with its deepness
And the rocks with their steepness
And the earth with its starkness
All these I place, by God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness."

In college, I read L'Engle's adult novels and nonfiction books, and even amassed an entire collection of Madeleine L'Engle quotes. Despite the vast difference in our ages, L'Engle always seemed to be pondering the very issues that were becoming vitally important to me.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Madeleine L'Engle:

-- “The artist’s response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write. Not to impose restrictive rules, but to rejoice in pattern and meaning. For there is something in all artists which rejects coincidence and accident…We must meet the precariousness of the universe without self-pity, and with dignity and courage.” - Madeleine L’Engle

-- “There is little character or loveliness in the face of someone who has shunned risk, avoided suffering and rejected life…” - Madeleine L’Engle

-- “To learn to love is to be stripped of all love, until you are wholly without love. Because until you have gone, naked and afraid, into this cold, dark place, you will not know that you are wholly within love."

- "There are three ways that you can live life – three again – remember that great writers always do things in threes.

"You can live life as though it’s all a cosmic accident; we’re nothing but an irritating skin disease on the face of the earth. Maybe you can live your life as though everything’s a bad joke. I can’t.

"Or you can go out at night and look at the stars and think, yes, they were created by a prime mover and so were you, but he’s aloof perfection, impassible, indifferent to his creation. He doesn’t care, or, if he cares, he only cares about the ultimate end of his creation… You don’t matter to him, I don’t matter to him, except possibly as the means to an end. I can’t live that way either.

"Then there’s a third way: to live as though you believe that the power behind the universe is a power of love, a love so great that all of us really do matter to him. He loves us so much that every single one of our lives has meaning; he really does know about the fall of the sparrow, and the hairs on our head are really counted. That’s the only way I can live."

Sewn by the Feeling

2007-09-03T07:56:00.001-07:00

And, here's another one:
I am in love with this song, too!

The Feeling - Sewn

Add to My Profile More Videos

Alana Davis

2007-09-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

Okay... this is not a quote - but I love this singer!
And, her lyrics demonstrate an intimate awareness of "the vast, untidy sea of truth."

Alana Davis- Blame It On Me

Add to My Profile More Videos

The Magic of Reading

2007-09-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

"Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person...

"Reading is escape and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real."

- Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck

The vast, untidy sea of truth

2007-08-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

I love this phrase, "the vast, untidy sea of truth" as coined by Sue Grafton.

She continues,

"The truth isn't always nice. It isn't always small enough to absorb at once. Sometimes the truth washes over you and threatens to take you right down with it."

- Sue Graft, J is for Judgment

Mother who suffers from severe bouts of depression

2007-07-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

"Yes, my kids will think I'm crazy. That's the right of kids. It's what they do when not shoving the cat into the dryer or marking walls with impressionist crayon art.

"This book will give them plenty of fodder for future arguments, for which they'll neglect to thank me. Perhaps they'll be pissed that I made their eventual rebellion too easy."

- Martini, Adrienne. Hillbilly Gothic.

Working to feel worthy of love

2007-07-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

"I lived my life in pursuit of perfection, because that was the only way that I felt the world would deem me worthy of its love.

"Now, I just don't give two shakes about making the world love me. I know who does and that it is based on who I really am, not who I want you to think I am.

"I spent too much time in my twenties running, denying that the past could have any influence on my present. Screw that. I'm too tired to play that game anymore, especially since striving toward being honest is so much more rewarding."

- Martini, Adrienne. Hillbilly Gothic.

PTSD triggers as described (accurately) in a juvenile fiction book

2007-07-17T14:15:00.001-07:00

Pain and sadness are homeless beggars in my life, displaced feelings that come and go, plopping down for their own reasons, sleeping in any corner of my brain. They wear at me with a constant tiredness that I have to chase out.

"Sometimes, though, a trigger pulls inside me, and the pain goes off, getting bad. It isn't like I know all the triggers, but school newness is a definite."

- Clinton, Cathryn. The Eyes of Van Gogh.

Quoting from another blogger

2007-05-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've always felt the same way about these lyrics, and I loved this posting:

http://cravingideas.blogs.com/backinskinnyjeans/2006/06/that_i_would_be.html

She wrote:
That I would be good
by Alanis Morissette
Album: Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

Alanis Morissette is one of those songwriters whose lyrics always articulate into song some part of my life that I cannot. "That I would be good" is one of those songs that hit me at the core because she sings about something that I have struggled with my whole life, feeling good enough just as I am. Feeling good enough because I am beautiful as I am. Feeling worthy enough for the love of a special man just because I am me. Feeling good enough that I do have unique and special talents that others would appreciate.

Many women, I know, feel like this. Not feeling good enough is a compulsion that makes many of us ache, depressed, and desperate. This is especially true when it comes to our physical appearance, and that is why we obsess about fixing what isn't "good", so that we could be good. What Alanis is saying in her song is that we are good regardless.

Some lines in the song that grab me:

that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
that I would be good whether with or without you

There was a time a few years ago where I would just drive for hours and sing songs. That I would be good was one of those songs I would sing as loud as I could, and then cry as hard as I could. It was car therapy, and it helped me get through a rough time in my life.

Great New Quotes from Lemony Snicket

2007-05-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

- "Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the crimes, follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women."

- "What happened in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired, a word which here means 'happened and made everybody sad.'"

- "Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby - awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess."

- "One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and songs about how pleasant it is, it really is quite pleasant."

- "If one's safety is threatened, one often finds courage one didn't know one had. In times of great stress one can often find energy hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body."

- "It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable."

Source: Snicket, Lemony. Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid (2007).

Partial lyrics to Zero 7 "In the Waiting Line"

2007-02-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

Do you believe
in what you see
motionless wheel
nothing is real

Wasting my time
in the waiting line

Do you believe
in what you see

Everyone's saying different things to me
different things to me...

Lullabyes for little criminals

2007-02-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

"At the waiting room of Family Services downtown, I felt as if I were in formaldehyde, one of the little fetuses in jars at the chemistry lab at our school. I'd been removed from my natural environment and brought here to be studied. If someone stuck a pin in my side, I doubt that I would have felt anything.

"Lots of times when children draw a person on a blank piece of paper, they don't draw any background at all, just a person standing there without any context. That was me...

"You had to think that you were a superhero and that the cold could not affect you. It could not even touch you. Or at least that's what I had to do. Your superhuman power was to be able not to feel.

"Is there inside of everybody the self that comes out when you are in captivity? You become the closest approximation of yourself that can tolerate living there."

-Heather O'Neill, Lullabyes for Little Criminals

Don't become a statistic

2007-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

"I know how bad the odds are for girls like me.

"We wait to be rescued, but for whatever reason, no one comes. We figure that if no one protects us then we must not be worth protecting so we become prey are and easily picked off. Our wounded, kicked-puppy gazes attract sly predators and we sell ourselves for clearance sale prices, mistaking screwing for caring.

"We binge, purge, sleep around. We drink too much and get too high, anything to blot out the past. We accept and endure beatings and humiliations because our fathers, our uncles and our mother's twisted boyfriends said they loved us, too, right before they broke our bones and tore our tissue, right before they made us receive them.

"We have babies because we want them to love us, to make us important, but they only make us tired and far and stinking of spit up because they're babies, not saviors. Their fathers leave us, sick of crap and sour milk, sweatpants and tears.

"But the babies need all of us, only there isn't anything left to give because we based our worth on the lowlifes who knocked us up and around."

-Laura Wiess, Such a Pretty Girl

Lonely Woman

2007-02-28T16:04:00.000-08:00

we are fatherless daughters
entering womanhood with only half our selves
worshipping the mystique
of masculinity

naked bodies flying
willingly
over the edge
of countless cliffs
praying the god of gravity
will grant us grace

you see us at parties
getting drunk on emptiness
dancing dirty with strangers
or worse - with men we know

we will do what we don't
to please our lovers
'cause this one could be
the one
our hearts hold...

we are lonely women
waiting for someone
to want us
wanting someone
to need us
needing
someone

-Kyesha N. Brown, Bum Rush the Page, defpoetryjam

Always Daddy's Girl

2006-07-17T01:41:00.000-07:00

I referred to this book in a recent blog entry on my SunshineGirlOnARainyDay page.

Here are some quotes from H. Norman Wright's book:
-"This daughter is emotionally deprived. Early on, she learned to avoid the fear of abandonment and isolation by denying feelings and pain... She is fearful that anyone else she opens her heart to may also be ripped out of her life."

On fear of intimacy:
-"She wants a man in her life, but she is unsure about trusting him. Any violation of trust from the man she cares about is further proof to her that she can't trust any man."

-"She wants to be loved and she wants to be loveable. But anger, mistrust and fear of intimacy with men can keep her from giving herself to a man."

On fear of abandonment:
-"I guess I'm tired of trying to make everything right just like I did when I was a child. I couldn't make men stay then, and now I'm afraid I can't keep you either."

On workaholism:
-"Many fatherless women pour their energy into work as a substitute for the fathering they never had..."

On distant, bystanding fathers:
"As his daughter's first example of a man, this father distorts her concept of how a man should behave, causing her to believe that all men are distant and detached like her father."

On weak fathers:
-"If you are the victim of a weak father, you must give up the idealistic hope that you can ever make him strong."

-"A strong man can turn the tide for a woman whose primary masculine model, her father, was weak. Her new model of strength can be a source of learning and guidance to her, filling the void created by a weak father."

On survival:
"The reason I'm here is because I'm a survivor. I had to be. I know I'm insecure emotionally, but I do survive."

2006-07-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

“The artist’s response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write. Not to impose restrictive rules, but to rejoice in pattern and meaning. For there is something in all artists which rejects coincidence and accident…We must meet the precariousness of the universe without self-pity, and with dignity and courage.” - Madeleine L'Engle.

"One writes out of one thing only - one's own experiences. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art." - James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955.

"To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." - Roberta Flack (1989)

“Suffering in the Jewish tradition conveys no privileges. It all depends on what one makes out of that suffering. It is possible to suffer an entire lifetime, and still not give up the art of laughter.” – Eli Wiesel, after his imprisonment in a concentration camp and the loss of all of his loved ones

"You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you" - Mary Tyler Moore.

"Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it." - James Baldwin (1962)

Jubani by Gigi Anders

2006-05-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

The strength of Gigi Anders' writing is in her emotional honesty. While reading her book about growing up Jewish and Cuban, I was impressed more by her candor than by her writing style.

Here is a particular quote that spoke to me:
"I was learning the ropes, the ropes of people's love limitations, and settling for what little I could scramble to get. My deduction: I may have to steal the love I crave. Where can I go to shoplift love? Maybe I'm just not interesting enough to linger over, so I'd better work on that.

I must be burdensome and not worth putting time and effort into. My needs must be too big and unwieldy, for meeting them takes too long and takes too much out of others who have more important things to do with their time. My feelings about the state of my needs don't matter. I will always be alone in this world."

This is a painfully honest statement of feelings. To one extent, it is true and to another, it isn't. The prophecy about being forever alone for example...

A friend of mine once told me, "Lisa, people are born alone and they die alone. In between then, they have other people in their lives who come and go. In between then, they always have God."

There were times, when I was processing my foster care experiences in my late-teens and early-20s, that friends I shared with were overwhelmed by the emotions that I shared with them. It was indeed "too much." That happens. Emotions can be very overwhelming.

But that said nothing about my personal worth. As time went by, I was able to sort through those experiences, deal with the emotions and figure out a way to use those experiences for good. It's a "beauty from ashes" sort of thing.

People do have love-limitations. That's a fact. But to assume that their human fallibility means that you as a person are unloveable? That would be to believe a lie.

Have I ever shoplifted love? I married far too quickly. My husband and I rushed our courtship. We wanted instant-family. The first year was tumultuous. But now, we have done the tough work of building a marriage. Trust, communication and honesty.

I guess I still believe in happy endings. For all of us.

The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping (Nasdijj)

2006-05-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

The quotes from the very beginning of the book "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping" by Nasdijj are very powerful. I must admit that I became frustrated mid-way through reading this book, because while I admired Nasdijj adopting a foster child with AIDS, some of the trips he took the boy on were troubling to me.

But, here are the quotes:
-"Sometimes I think I am insane. Why would anyone adopt a child with AIDS?... I want something no one is allowed to have."

-"I want the mad ones. The children mad enough to struggle and survive. I want the children who have seen war. The children mad enough to question everything. The children who have had everything taken away from them. The children who are broken and mad enough to attempt to repair themselves. The children mad enough to spit and fight. Mad enough to laugh outrageously. Mad enough to make a music of their own. Mad enough to see themselves as individuals..."

-"I want children who will dance in the rain. I want the mad crazy ones. I want the ones insane enough to love hard, and brave enough to be vulnerable."

-"What I know and understand and write about is chaos. I have worked with boys who live in foster homes. I am told there are good foster homes, and I believe it. I am an optimist and in denial about many things. I just haven't seen any good foster homes. The foster homes I have seen have been places I wouldn't leave a dog."

-"I have many social worker friends who call me when they are facing a crisis with some kids they want to go to the wall for in order to save. Even in our burned cynicism, we believe there are kids who are still worth it."

-"When we were young, our idealism was breathtaking... we would save the world... We demonstrated. We got our names put on FBI lists. We took over Alcatraz. Now, we are quiet about the work we do. We change things. Quietly."

-"We are no longer interested in saving the world. We know in our bones that the world does not deserve or desire to be saved. We also know that there is a different between the world and an individual child who might, indeed, desire to be saved."

-"Change is one child at a time. Change is one family at a time. Change is changing the madness of culture into the spirituality of the individual, one social structure at a time."

-"Life with Awee (the foster child with AIDS) had an immediacy that was inescapable. You did things now. You hugged him now. You did the dishes with him now. You talked late into the night with him now. There was no 'later'-safe to store your valuables in."