Tag: Quotes

Ten Quotes for 2015

by Stephanie Grossman, posted in On Writing
Credit: Walker Art Center
Credit: Walker Art Center

Hi all! I know I haven’t gotten the chance to blog here in the last few months. It’s been quite a busy and crazy time for me, which I’m sure I’ll write about at some point. In the meantime, I really wanted to keep the tradition going where I lay out some quotes I want to live by in the new year.

Just as a recap, I began my New Year’s ritual last year. At the beginning of every year now, I plan to take a look at the quotes I have collected over the previous 12 months–not only to be reminded of the words that have touched me in the last year, but to also use these words as inspiration for my life in the new year.

Here are my ten favorite quotes I came across in 2014 that will serve as inspiration for my life in 2015:

1. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

2. “What makes night within us may leave stars.” – Victor Hugo

3. “Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.” – George R. R. Martin (from A Game of Thrones)

4. “I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something.” – Neil Gaiman

5. “All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” – Federico Fellini

6. “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott

7. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams

8. “You couldn’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole–like the world, or the person you loved.” – Stewart O’Nan

9. “Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.” – Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac

10. “Accept who you are. Unless you’re a serial killer.” – Ellen DeGeneres

Happy New Year!

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15 Quotes for 2014

by Stephanie Grossman, posted in On Writing
Credit: www.my-so-called-luck.de
Credit: http://www.my-so-called-luck.de

I’ve become quite the quote collector.

I always keep an eye out for beautiful and true sentences in the writing I read or the films I watch. I also receive a Goodreads “Quote of the Day” daily quote email in my inbox. Any quotes that resonate with me get added into a “Quotes” file—but then, since I know the quotes are safely documented and saved, I usually end up forgetting about them.

This year, I decided not to let those quotes stay hidden in their file and instead review them as a new cathartic New Year’s ritual. At the beginning of every year now, I plan to take a look at the quotes I will have collected over the last 12 months—not only to be reminded of the words that touched me in the previous year, but to also use these words as inspiration for my life in the new year.

So instead of sharing a New Year’s resolution, I’d like to share 15 of my favorite quotes I found in 2013 that will influence how I live in 2014:

1. “Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.” – Douglas Coupland

2. “Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I’ve heard the strange madness long growing in your soul. But you are fortunate in your ignorance, in your isolation. You who have suffered, find where love hides. Give, share, lose—lest we die, unbloomed.” – From the film Kill Your Darlings

3. “I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.” – Nadezha Mandelstam

4. “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” — Charles Bukowski

5. “Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them.” – Sue Grafton

6. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter.” – John Keats

7. “The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.” – T.H. White

8. “Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” – Chuck Klosterman

9. “You will hear thunder and remember, and think: she wanted storms.” – Anna Akhmatova

10. “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.” – Anne Rice

11. “You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying in the road.” – Richard Price

12. “The past is always tense, the future perfect.” – Zadie Smith

13. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie

14. “Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result—eventually, astoundingly, and all to briefly—in you.” – Bill Bryson

15. “It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.” – Joseph Conrad

(P.S. Hope you are liking the new blog look. I think this blog will continue to evolve, so don’t be surprised if it has another new look or format soon).