Quotes from "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas"

"Good memories are like charms. Each is special. You collect them, one by one, until one day you look back and discover they make a long, colorful bracelet." (page 79)

"What we want most fro you is love and that it will always surround you. It is a gift. It I can, I will try to teach you how to receive such a gift. Because to be without love is to be without grace, what matters most in life." (page 105)

"Bad stuff does happen sometimes.
Always remember that, but remember that you have to move on, somehow.
You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful in the sky, or the ocean, and you move the hell on." (page 115)

"But it has made me realize more than ever how vulnerable we are, how life can be like walking on a high wire. Falling seems a tiny misstep away. Just seeing that poor woman today, and remembering how lucky we were made me catch my breath." (page 183)

Quote from "The Last Song"

"These days, all he could say for sure was that he was ordinary in a world that loved the extraordinary, and the realization left him with a vague feeling of disappointment at the life he had led." (page 17)

Quotes from "The Lucky One"

"Proximity bred familiarity, and familiarity bred comfort." (page 88)

"Sometimes the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people." (page 174)

"Loss was complicated and [they] struggled wit its aftereffects. She felt sometimes that their memories wreaked havoc with their grieving, for despite the heroism that marked their ordeal, their reminiscences were not always rosy." (page 325)

Quotes from "The Woods"

“I have learned over the years–in the most horrible ways imaginable–that the wall between life and death, between extraordinary beauty and mind-boggling ugliness, between the most innocent setting and a frightening bloodbath, is flimsy. It takes a second to tear through it.” (Page 5)

“Most people believe death is the cruelest thing. Not so. After a while, hope is a far more abusive mistress. When you live with it as long as I have, your neck constantly on the chopping block, the ax raised above you for days, then months, then years, you long for it to fall and lop off your head.” (Page 18)

“Death is pure, wrecking-ball destructive. It hits, you’re crushed, you start to rebuild. But not knowing–that doubt, that glimmer–makes death work more like termites or some sort of relentless germ. It eats away from the inside. You cannot stop the rot. You cannot rebuild because that doubt will just keep gnawing away.” (Page 18-19)

“The mind does funny things under stress.” (Page 20)

“Nostalgia was one thing–a deteriorating mind another.” (Page 115)

“But life isn’t like that. Some get a lifetime pass. Others, like you, get more than your share. Much more. And the worst part is, it doesn’t make you immune to even more.” (Page 259)

“It is a big mistake to theorize before has data–because one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” (Page 335)

“Even that horror–you get used to it. Like comfort, suffering can become the norm.” (Page 351)

“You don’t worry about happiness and fulfillment when you’re starving.” (Page 351)

Quotes from "A Wedding in December"

"Is imagination dependent upon experience , or is experience influenced by the imagination?" (page 33)

"If a man didn't have the courage of his convicions, was he still a good man?
But how did one define 'good'?" (page 35)

"Bridget loved Bill. Not fiercely as she loved her son. Not all consumingly as she had once loved Bill as a teenager. But, rather, solidly and knowingly, a deep undercurrent of passion and memory running below a grateful surface." (page 52)

"Of such momentary decisions, Harrison thought now, were entire unviverses constructed... (...) Chance constructions could not be undone, Harrison knew. Momentary decisions could not be disowned." (page 70)

"While the experience had been literally breathtaking fro Bridget, Bill had later said it was among the saddest moments of his life. For he had seen instantly what Bridget had been too bewildered to comprehend: the staggering sum of all the days and years they had missed together." (page135)

"A twenty-two-year marriage is a long story,( ...) it's a continuum with moments of drama, periods of stupefying boredom. Passages of tremendous hope. Passages of resignation. Once can never tell the story of a marriage. There's no narrative that encompasses it. Even a daily diary wouldn't tell you what you wanted to know. Who thought what when. Who had what dreams. At the very least, a marriage is two intersecting stories, one of which we will never know." (page151)

"One could never regret anything that led to the births of one's children: it was as axiomatic as any mathematical formula." (page 158)

"It was crap that confessing a thing relieved one of guilt, Harrison thought. How convenient to think so, how utterly deluding. Confessing a thing, he knew now, made the thing more real." (page 276)

"There are no words to describe a certain kind of pain." (page 297)


"For what was the point of fiction (...) if not to edit reality? If not to rewrite history? If not to soothe one's fevered dreams?" (page 314)

Quotes from "Trick of the Eye"

"I've only regretted the paintings I did not buy, the trips I did no take, the people I did not love. That is to say, I've only ever regretted the things I didn't do--never the ones I did. (...) One's only regret in life is the failure to act." (page 17)

"I think happiness becomes more of a decision as one gets older. I think at some point you just decide you're going to be happy with what you've got." (page 29)

"Because he'd left us, I defined a man's love by its absence rather than its presence, by the pain it inflicted, rather than the joy it is supposed to bring." (page 44)

"I've come to realize one spends most of one's life eating, sleeping, and missing the point!" (page 95)

"But people who can't feel are dangerous, Harry. Don't you know that? And the really dangerous ones are the ones who try to imitate the people who can feel. They're like poisonous species of mistletoe." (page 157)

"There are some ghosts that will not leave you alone. As you get older, instead of gradually fading, they become more clear." (page 217)

"Life goes on. You would be surprised what people can learn to live with." (page 221)

"No one changes. Circumstances change, and then people appear to have changed." (page 228)

"Part of me wanted to see Harry properly laid to rest. And another part of me wanted to attend simply out of curiosity. But I decided I was better off not going. I very much wanted to remember Harry the way I'd always known him, the way he's presented himself, the way he wanted to be remembered. I had the sense that were I to go out and unearth the roots he's spent a lifetime burying, I would somehow be disloyal to his memory." (page 238)

"On the way home in the taxi, I thought about about Harry and about death. Harry was still there for me in my imagination, more vivid than ever in some ways, now that I knew I was never going to see him again. Yet, at the same time, he was gone forever. It was as if some part of my life had come to a halt when I wasn't looking. I'd moved on, suspecting nothing, expecting to turn around and see my friend at my side the next moment. And then he wasn't there. He had stopped, and I had gone on. Was death that simple?" (pages 238-239)

"Life comes through expression, not through representation." (page 265)

Quotes from "One Dangerous Lady"

"Look, quite frankly, there are some blows in life from which you don't recover. You just have to learn to live with them and, hopefully, turn your won sorrow into something positive." (p. 315)

"Love ought to be put more in deeds than in words." (p. 321)

"In those who go on from good to better, the good Angel touches such a soul sweetly, lightly and gently, like a drop of water which enters a sponge; and the evil touches it sharply and with noise and disquiet, as when the drop of water falls on the stone." (p.322)

"If you can't be hypocritical to those you loathe, whom can you be hypocritical to?" (p. 324)

"Just as it takes a new romance to cure a broken heart, it takes a new obsession to replace an old one." (p. 328)

Quotes from "Shutter Island"

"She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me, in the eyes of my astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic." (p.1)

"If time for me really is a series of bookmarks, then I feel as if someone has shaken the book and those yellowed slips of paper, torn matchbook covers and flattened coffee stirrers have fallen to the floor, and the dog-eared flaps have been pressed smooth." (p.2)

"That's the Kafkaesque genius of it all. If you;re not crazy but people have told thw world you are, then all your protests to the contrary just underscore their point." (p.269)

Quotes from "A Million Little Pieces"

WARNING: Before you start reading these quotes, let me first tell you that the book is the story of a drug addict recovery process during the 6 weeks spent in a Rehab Center, story told by himself; some of the passages, hence vocabulary used, might get crude and sometimes disturbing... Second, the fact that I isolated some passages does not mean that I agree with what he wrote. Most of the time I do, but know that these are HIS words, not mine. Simply put, the passages below all triggered something in me... They simply either inspired me, troubled me, chagrined me, saddened me, made me smile, and so on. But mainly, they made me feel ALIVE and happy to be alive... And if you get a chance and are not afraid to see life through an Addict's point of view, then go ahead and read the book. The reading gets hard sometimes but in my humble opinion, it is well worth it.

"They are all different and they are all the same and as I sit there smoking my cigarette, they scare the living shit out of me." (p.31)

(to put the following quoted words in perspective, you need to know that the narrator is a recovering drug addict currently committed in a Clinic, and just had 2 teeth capped and a double root canal done WITHOUT any kind of anesthetics or/and drugs before and after the surgery... yep... rough to read but this is what brought tears to my eyes) "I smile back. It is my first smile with my new teeth. I'm amused by this and I smile wider and I point toward my mouth. Doctor Stevens laughs and he walks toward me and he puts his arms around me and he hugs me. We are two men who have just been through a terrible ordeal together. Although it was worse for me, I know it wasn't easy for him. The hug is our bond, our bond to learn from what we just have been through and become better and stronger because if it. I know he will keep the bond, I don't know if I can." (p.72)

"I turn and I slowly walk away and I don't look back. It has always been a fault of mine, but it is the way I am. I never look back. Never." (p.73)

"Give me something. Anything. I need to get out of here. If not in body, at least in mind. I need to get the fuck out of here. I pick up the book. I stare at it. I know it can't hurt and I know I have nothing to lose. I begin reading." (p.77)

"I am not brave enough to look into my own eyes." (p.79)

"I can run fast when I want to run fast, and I've always been good at destroying things." (p.80)

"I can imagine my obituary. The truth of my existence will be removed and replaced with imagined good. The reality of how I lived will be avoided and changed and phrases will be dropped in like Beloved Son, Loving Brother, Reliable Friend, Hardworking Student. People will change their view of me, from reckless Fuck-Up to helpless Martyr, from dangerous Fool to sad Victim, from addicted Asshole to unfortunate Child. They will say things like my God, what a waste. Oh, what he could have been. He had so much going for him, what happened? And it will be fucking false, every single word of it will be false.
I know who I am and I know what I've done and I know why I am about to die. I have faced the reality and the reality is simple. I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal. That is what I am and who I am and that is how I should be remembered. No happy lies, no invented memories, no fake sentimentality, no tears. I do not deserve tears. I deserved to be portrayed honestly and I deserve nothing more and I start to write an honest obituary in my own mind. I write the obituary that should appear, but never will. I start at the begining and I stick to the facts and I move to what I know will be my end..." (p.94)

"My mind is clear adn my urges are gone and my heart is beating slow and steady. In my mind, my obituary is done. It is done and it is right. It tells the truth, and as awful as it can be. the truith is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I am remembered at all. Remember the truth. It is all that matters." (p.95)

“Belonging is not something I have ever concerned myself with and is not something I give two shits about.” (p.104)

“If you think you’re making that choice, you’re wrong. Your choices are made by the shit that controls you and by the shit you can’t quit. You walk out of here and that shit’s gonna kill you and that’s fucking wrong.” (p.107)

“Life is hard Kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it on and fight for it and be a fucking man about how you live it. If you’re too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should leave, ‘cause you’re dead already.” (p.107)

“I start to look up. I want to see my eyes. I want to look beneath the surface of the pale green and see what’s inside of me. As I get near I turn away. I try to force myself back, but I can’t do it. I have not consciously looked into my eyes for years. Although I have wanted to look into them, I have not had the strength to do so. I try to force myself, but I can’t. I do not have the strength now and I do not know if I will ever have the strength. I will never look into the pale green of my eyes again. There are places from which you cannot return. There is damage that can be irreparable.” (p.116)

“Her eyes and her hand understand my words, have seen and felt this type of damage before. there is no judgment and no condescension. Just hope.” (p.129)

“You have two decisions to make, James. The first is whether you want to live, and I believe you do. I believe that deep inside of you, you realize what a horrible waste it would be to kill yourself. I believe that what you present to the World and what you are on the inside are two different things, and that you know that what you are on the inside is something that’s worth saving. The second decision is whether you’re willing to do what it takes, and what we tell you it takes, to get sober. You need to decide whether you’re going to stop being stubborn, and whether you’re willing to open your mind to something that you really don’t know anything about. Take your time and think.” (p.151)

“I know a bit about the loss of dignity. I know that when you take away a man’s dignity, there is a hole, a deep black hole filled with despair, humiliation and self-hatred, filled with emptiness, shame and disgrace, filled with loss and isolation and Hell. It’s a deep, dark, horrible fucking hole, and that hole is where people like me live our sad-ass, fucked-up, dignity-free, inhuman lives, and where we die, alone, miserable, wasted and forgotten.” (p.156)

“I saw a man cry yesterday. I’ve seen men cry before, but I usually think it’s because they’re weak or pathetic. The man who cried yesterday cried because he was strong and I admired his strength. I know people might think I’m strong or tough, but I’m really not. I’m a sheep in a wolf’s clothing.” (p.164)

“I think men who can cry are strong men.” (p.169)

“An addict is an Addict. It doesn’t matter whether the Addict is white, black, yellow or green, rich or poor or somewhere in the middle, the most famous Person on the Planet or the most unknown. It doesn’t matter whether the addiction is drugs, alcohol, crime, sex, shopping, food, gambling, television, or the fucking Flinstones. The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, no glamor, no fun. There are no good times, there is no joy, there is no happiness. There is no future and no escape. There is only an obsession. An all-encompassing, fully enveloping, completely overwhelming obsession. To make light of it, brag about it, or revel in the mock glory of it is not in any way, shape or form related to its truth, and that is all that matters, the truth. That this man is standing in front of me and everyone else in this room lying to us is heresy. The truth is all that matters. This is fucking heresy.” (p.178)

“(...) names rare not necessary for that which is real and for that which is eternal. It says that if we are free from desire, we can realize mystery, that if we are caught in desire, we only realize manifestations. It says mystery and manifestations arise from the same source, which is darkness. It says darkness within darkness is the key to all understanding.” (p.179)

“If there is beauty, there is ugliness. If there is good, there is bad. Being and nonbeing and difficult and easy and high and low and long and short and before and after need, depend, create and define each other.” (p.180)

“Overesteem men and people become powerless. Overvalue possessions and people begin to steal. Empty your mind and fill your core. Weaken your ambition and toughen your resolve. Lose everything you know and everything you desire and ignore those who say they know. Practice not wanting, desiring, judging, doing, fighting, knowing. Practice just being. Everything will fall into place.” (p.180)

“Live and let live.
Do no judge.
Take it as it comes.
Deal with it.
Everything will be okay.” (p.180)

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Your hair, your eyes, your lips, your body that you haven’t grown into, the way you walk, smile, laugh, the way your cheeks drop when you’re mad or upset, the way you drag your feet when you’re tired. Every single thing about you is beautiful. (...) When I see you the World stops. It stops and all that exists for me is you and my eyes staring at you. There’s nothing else. No noise, no other people, no thoughts or worries, no yesterday, no tomorrow. The World just stops, and it is a beautiful place, and there is only you. Just you and my eyes staring at you. (...) When you’re gone, the World starts again, and I don’t like as much. I can live in it, but I don’t like it. I just walk around in it and wait to see you again and wait for it to stop again. I love it when it stops. It’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever know or ever felt, the best thing, and that, beautiful Girl, is why I stare at you.” (p.186-187)

“I listen to the tick of an unseen clock marking moments of time long passed. It takes me the tick and it holds me ad it carries and keeps me like the slow swing of a pendulum before the eyes of an idiot. The World has stopped not like before and not in a good way. It has stopped and is not going forward the same way my life has stopped and is not going forward. It is not going forward or backward or anywhere at all it has just stopped. It has just stopped.” (p. 187-188)

“This moment and this chance they are the same and they are mine if I choose them and I do. I want them. Now and as long as I can have them they are both precious and fleeting and gone in the blink of an eye don’t waste them. A moment and an opportunity and a life, all in the unseen tick of c lock holding me nowhere. My heart is beating. The walls are pale and quiet. I am surviving.” (p.188)

“The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone. “(p.193)

“The most important is that when you get down, or you don’t think you can fucking do this anymore, just hold on, and sooner or later, the shit is gonna get better.” (p. 194)

“Be smart, be strong, be proud, live honorably and with dignity, and just hold on.” (p. 195)

“There is no good or evil, no Sinner or Saint. There simply is what is and that is it. You can use that to be and that is enough. Don’t talk about it or question it. Just let it be. Just be.” (p.200)

“Stay behind and get ahead. Detach and become. Let go of all and you will be full. Let go of all and you will be full... the good is like water that nourishes without trying.... in thinking keep to simple, in conflict be fair... don’t compare or compete simply be yourself.... fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill, keep sharpening your knife and it will dull... chase after money and your heart will never unclench. Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” (p. 201)

“I am not soft or warm but I imagine that it would be nice to be that way. I have never known it. I know a cold, hard, raging Fury deep inside of me and I am tired of it. I am tired of the feeling, I want to die so that I don’t have to feel it anymore. I would like to be soft and warm. I would be terrified to be that way. I could be hurt if I were soft and warm. I could be hurt by something other than myself. it is harder to be soft than it is to be hard. I could be hurt by something other than myself.” (p.201)

“Laughing or love. They are both drugs.” (p.201)

“I curl into myself and the voice begins again. Sorrow and shame and ecstasy and bliss and joy and pain and redemption and damnation and love and without.
It is all the same, Young Man.
Take it and let it be.” (p.215)

"I look less like what I am and more like a human being. I am becoming more like a human being." (p.220)

"I think God I something that People use to avoid reality . I think faith allows People to reject what is right in front of our eyes, which is that this thing, this life, this existence, this consciousness, or whatever word you want to use for it, is all we have, and all we'll ever have. I think People have faith because they want and need to believe in something, whatever that something is, because life can be hard and depressing and brutal if you don't." (p.224)

"The calm. If there is God or something Higher for me it is this. The calm. If there is something that will hold me when I need to hold it is this the calm. There is no anger, no rage, no Fury. There is no want, no need, no desire. There is no hatred no shame no regret. There is no grief, no sadness, no depression. There is no fear. Absolutely no fear. When one lives without fear, one cannot be broken. When one lives with fear one is broken before one begins to live." (p.230)

"In bottles and pipes I found emptiness and pain., At twenty0two after Jail and bond and flight I went back to a Cathedral where what I sought was calm. The calm did not come. I have it now. Without God. I have it now." (p.230)

"I can hear the wind and water and the cries of flying birds and the screams of the Patients (...). I can feel them and I can feel myself. I can feel the life in them and the life around me. I can feel it in the beating calm of my heart. It is not God and it is not something Higher. This feeling of calm is of me, within me, from me and created by me. It is not God. It is not something Higher." (p.230)

"Fighting is an acknowledgment of existence. I no longer need to fight or acknowledge what I know is not there. There are still fights to be fought, and I will fight them, but not with the blind faith of a false conversion to a belief in that which does not, has not, will not ever exist, God or something higher. I will fight with me, my heart, my will, myself, my song, I will fight with me. I may win, I may lose. It doesn't matter either way. What matters is how I do it. (...) I will do it with me. Alone. I will do it with me." (p.231)

"I am aware that the battle I am fighting is a petty one, but I am also aware that in order to win that which is great, you must first win that which is small. An addiction is an addiction and a fight is a fight. The same principles apply. Just hold on." (p.238)

"You did the best you could with me, and you loved me the best you could, and that's all I could have ever asked for from you. I have no excuses for what I've done or for who I am or for what I've put you through all these years." (p.251)

"This is how it has always been with me. Give me something good, I'll destroy it. Love me, I'll destroy you. I have never felt deserving of anything in my life. I have never felt as if I were worth the diseased space I occupy. This feeling has inhabited everything I've ever done, seen or had anything to do with, and it has infected every relationship I have ever had with with everyone I've ever known. I don't understand it. I don't understand why it's here. I hate it as I hate myself, and for whatever the reason, my Parents' presence has always made it worse. They are only trying to love me, but they have always made it fucking worse." (p.252)

"You have to be fairly strong to feel anything as powerful as hatred or self-hatred. Addiction and suicide are not for the weak." (p.253)

"...the Serenity Prayer... ( ) God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (p.260)

"Failure is an opportunity. If you blame others, there is no end to blame. Fulfill your obligations, correct your mistakes. Do what you need to do and step away. Demand nothing and give all. Demand nothing and give all." (p.261)

"Control by letting go of control, fix your problems by forgetting they're problems. Deal with them and the World and yourself with patience and simplicity and compassion. Let things be, let yourself be, let everything be and accept it as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing more." (p.262)

"Words can't say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough. It doesn't communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. Love. Love." (p.316)

"My mother walks around her desk and Joanne stands. They hug each other strong and true in the way that only women can hug each other. There is no hesitation between them and there is no distance. No emotional distance, no physical distance, no distance of any kind." (p.330)

"What is more important, fame or integrity. What is more valuable, money or happiness. What is more dangerous, success or failure. If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy. Be content with what you have and take joy in the way things are. When you realize you have all you need, the World belongs to you." (p.370)

"If you want to shrink something, you must first expand it. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must allow it to be given. The soft will overcome the hard. The slow will beat the fast. Don't tell people the way, just show them the results." (p.370)

"Knowing other people is intelligence, knowing yourself is wisdom. Mastering other people is strength, mastering yourself is power. If you realize that what you have is enough, you are rich truly rich. Stay in the center and embrace peace, simplicity, patience and compassion. Embrace the possibility of death and you will endure. Embrace the possibility of life and you will endure." (p.371)

"All things and all time will pass. Don't force or fear, don't control or lose control. Don't fight and don't stop fighting. Embrace and endure. If you embrace, you will endure." (p.371)

"It is easier to laugh at ourselves than cry at ourselves." (p.384)

"Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else you will never stop blaming. Fulfill your own obligations, correct your own mistakes. Do what you need to do and demand nothing of others.
What is rooted will grow. What is recent can be fixed. What is brittle will break. Prevent trouble before it finds you, put things in order before they exist. The giant tree grows froma single seed. The Journey of a thosuand miles starts with a singl step. If you rush, you'll fail. Hold on to things too tight and you'll lose them. Take action by letting action come to you. Remain as calm at the start as at the finish. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. Desire to not desire, learn to unlearn. Care for nothing and you will care for everything.
(...)
If you want to be whole, you must first be partial. If you want to be straight, you must first be crooked. If you want to be full, first become empty. If you want to be reborn, you must first die." (...)
(...)
It is said that the path into light is dark. That the path forward is backward. That true power seems weak, that true purity seems tarnished, that true resolve seems changeable, that true clarity seems obscure. The greatest art is unsophisticated, the greatest love indifferent, the greatest wisdom childish." (p.414)

"I close my eyes. I hear long and slow. I hear short and fast. I hear a song that doesn't come from notes on a page but from a beating human heart. I hear sorrow and shame and hope and redemption. I hear a past that doesn't matter and the future that never comes. I hear harmony and simplicity and patience, I hear discipline and compassion. I hear it all now. In this moment in this Clinic in this Room in this bed with my eyes closed.
I hear it.
Right now." (p.415)

Fear is only fear. I already know that nothing can hurt me more than I have already hurt myself. I know there is no pain that I cannot endure. I know that by holding on each moment each hour each day the days add up each week each month if I hold on I will be fine. I know I am strong. I know I am strong enough to confront what I fear and I know I am strong enough to hold on until the fear goes away. I believe this in my heart." (p.417)

"I step forward and I hug her. There is emotion in the hug, and there is respect and a form of love. Emotion that comes from honesty, respect that comes from challenge, and the form of love that exists between people whose minds have touched, whose hearts have touched, whose souls have tocuhed. Our minds touched. Our hearts touched. Our souls touched." (p.423)

Quotes from "The Catcher in the Rye"

Chapter 1 (opening lines of the novel) "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first pace, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

Chapter 2 ""Life is a game, boy. life is a game that one plays according to the rules." (...) Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right--I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game."

Chapter 3 ""What really knocks me out is a book that, when you are done reading it, you wish the author was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up whenever you felt like it."

Chapter 20 "Anything except sticking me in a (...) cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap? Who wants flowers when they're dead? Nobody."

Chapter 26 (closing lines of the novel) "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing somebody."

Will you be there?

Those lyrics always get me when I hear them. Regardless of who wrote them, they are quite touching..

"In Our Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tribulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I'll Never Let You Part
For You're Always In My Heart."

Quotes from "The Lost Symbol"

"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal." ~Albert Pike (page 454)

"Time is a river... And books are boats. Many volumes start down that stream, only to be wrecked and lost beyond recall in its sands. Only a few, very few, endure the testings of time and live to bless the ages following." (page 488)

"Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand. There are those who create... and those who tear down. The dynamic has existed for all time. But eventually the creators find believers, and the number of believers reach a crictical mass, and suddenly [...] perception is transformed, and a new reality is born." (page 503)

The Lost Symbol

I finished it tonight... A long book (Over 500 pages) but such a good one. I can see why some people are not fans of Dan Brown. It's sometimes hard to fathom all those symbols and meaning, etc... But you have to keep in mind that the book as a whole is a fiction. Not some kind of propaganda. At least that's how I see it. Already thinking about whether they will make a movie adaptation.

Scrap Quote

here's a quote I found in the latest scrapbooking magazine that came in the mail...

"Sometimes it's easy to overlook the little things in our life. Take a moment to walk around and find the small things that put a smile on your face, and then document them." ~Christine Drumheller

Don't worry, be happy...

As I was typing the quotes taken form the Montel Williams book (see earlier post), I realized some of those quotes are very important to me... I am bringing them up again here...

"The key to achieving happiness for yourself is to achieve it for others." (page 152)

(quoting Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) "Relationships are highly creative: you have to make them grow, just like a story." (page 105)

“You alone are the person who owns the definition of who you are.” (page 57)

Quotes from "Living Well Emotionally" by Montel Williams

"Suddenly, in 2008, the idea of electing a young black man as president of the United States became a flesh-and-blood reality. It is an idea so revolutionary to America and the world that we haven't absorbed it yet. It is huge. It is spectacular. It is history-changing and it is psyche-changing. I think it will transform our national emotional well-being in ways we don't yet understand." (page 40)

"Aren't personal crises, loss, sadness, and periods of emotional darkness just part of human nature? Absolutely! They can help us grow, and become stronger, and change ourselves for the better. (...) Critical thinking, fear, and skepticism can all be healthy and normal, and critical to our survival in the face of danger and uncertainty." (pages 42-43)

"Negative experiences can lead to change, and therefore eventually to happiness. As a Chinese proverb explains, "Without scaling mountains no one can know the height of heaven; without descending valleys, no one can know the depth of earth." A the Dalai Lama put it, "The person who has had more experience of hardships can stand more firmly in the face of problems than the person who has never experienced suffering." (page 43)

"The times when you have great turmoil in your life can turn out to be exactly the moments that trigger positive turning points and open you up to new horizons of potential." (Page 44)

“Happiness is actually part of the often-hard work of life, and it involves integrating periods of sadness into our lives. When you think about it, without sadness the idea of happiness has little meaning.” (page 44)

“You alone are the person who owns the definition of who you are.” (page 57)

“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t be. If you think it, believe it, and live it, I guarantee that you’ll start down a path to transform your life and live better every single day.
This is especially true when it comes to your happiness and your emotional life.
Don’t let anybody tell you how you should feel and what your emotions should be. You have the right to be as happy or as sad as you want to be, and you alone have the responsibility, and the power, to create your own happiness, nobody else.” (page 57)

(quoting Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius) “The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it.” (page 59)

“It’s important to understand that happiness is something you do, not something you find.” (page 59)

“In Julius Caesar William Shakespeare wrote, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries.” I believe that tide occurs every morning when you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror, and every hour, every second of your life. Every moment is a new opportunity to create happiness for yourself.” (page 59)

(quoting Dr. Richard Rosenthal) If you summon the courage to really look at yourself, the payoff is better awareness of yourself and a more truthful and more honest capacity to see who you really are in the real world.” (page 77-78)

"I believe that people have a right to feel sad and even a right to be depressed on occasion. We should absorb it as a part of who we are. But it doesn't have to define who we are, and we shouldn't suffer needlessly." (page 79-80)

(quoting Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura) "People need to learn how to manage failure so it's informational and not demoralizing." (page 89)

(quoting Professor Christopher Peterson) "There are five strengths in particular that are big predictors of how happy or satisfied somebody is. If you do any of those things well, then you should do more of them. The five strengths are:
*optimism
*curiosity
*gratitude
*zest/enthusiasm
*love and strong relationships with family, friends, and colleagues." (page 94-95)



(quoting Professor Christopher Peterson) "Another thing that's affected my own life as a result of our research is I now try to much kinder to other people by being curious about their well-being. I take the time to ask how they're doing, to actually mean it, and really listen to what they say. It's not just for the sake of the other person, it's also for my own sake. It absolutely makes me feel better. I am happier in that moment and over the long term as I do it over and over." (page 95)

"Top 3 proven happiness-building strategies
*being grateful
*doing acts of kindness
*learning to savor things" (page 95)

(quoting Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) "Relationships are highly creative: you have to make them grow, just like a story." (page 105)

"I have great respect for people who find organized religion to be a meaningful, rewarding, and glorious part of their lives. It can be one of the ultimate powerful forces for good in this world." (page 145)

"I've never read anything in any religious text that says we need a go-between between God and us, a layer of people to interpret the message or take our money.
So I don't get up every Sunday morning and go to church." (page 146)

"Many kids have no opportunity to reflect on anything but the here and now, and we should help them take time every day to think about something larger than themselves." (page 148)

"The key to achieving happiness for yourself is to achieve it for others." (page 152)

"You and I deserve a life of love and joy, a life in which we grow, prosper, and thrive emotionally, spiritually, and physically, in which happiness is a constant companion, not an impossible dream.
There is a doorway to happiness that is available to us any day, anywhere, anytime." (page 162)

Quote

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters when compared to what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes from “Always looking up” - “Family” Chapter

“Today happens to be our twentieth wedding anniversary, and I’ve got a blank card that I have to fill with righteous sentiment sometime before dinner this evening—twenty years’ worth of love, gratitude, affection, and respect in my own increasingly indecipherable cursive script. I promised myself I’d limit it to the two spaces within the card’s fold.” (Page 213)

“But now I was getting a chance to witness firsthand the courage, bravery, self-sacrifice, and enveloping sense of community present from the moment the first plane hit. I began to understand why so many stayed. Many were fearful, but so too were they hopeful. The effects reverberated nationwide, but while New York had been laid low by the most despicable acts, by the most awful suffering human beings could inflict upon other human beings, it had also been buoyed by its greater virtues. Hope, in this case, truly was optimism informed by the knowledge that more people were inclined to do good than to do evil.” (Page 222)

“Tracy and I will feel [that] way about marriage. The more complicated it gets, the more it seems to bring out the best in us.
Confronted with a complication as seemingly dire as my PD diagnosis, so early on in our marriage, could have left us undone. I, for one, was not a willing supplicant to reality. I was a big believer in my won press: a happy-go-lucky lottery winner who’d had it all—a great career, a beautiful wife, a healthy son. I was struggling, though, with figuring out how to keep it all going. I was working more than I needed to, worrying more that I liked to admit, and drinking more than anyone should. I was, to put it mildly, not well positioned to deal with what was coming.”(Page 226)

“If all the risks are removed form a child’s environment, the child will be doomed to a life of playing it safe.” (Page 232)

“...no parent can get his or her arms around all of the could’ve, would’ve, should’ves, mights, maybes, and what-ifs. Each new moment gives you a sufficient load to carry, and I’ve learned, especially as my arms have grown shakier, that there are times when the wisest thing to do is to let go.” (Page 233)

“That has consistently been the thrill for Tracy and me. To discover what they’ve discovered, to hear them recount their joys and successes, to let them have full ownership of all they’ve accomplished, and credit themselves for what they’ve learned, is the best and easiest part of parenting for me.”
It’s much harder, however, to let them own their failures and disappointments. The truth is, of course, that you have no choice. To some extent, the load can be shared, but it can never entirely be taken away.” (Page 237)

“... you can’t take away your child’s pain. You can only be present, be aware, be responsive, be compassionate, and love that child with everything you have.” (Page 238)

“No matter how well intentioned, if I somehow convinced my children that I could remove their problems and relieve their pain, spare them the ups and downs of life, I’d be doing them a huge disservice.” (Page 239)

“Kids are like Labrador retrievers—show them a car with the motor running and the back door open, and giving no thought to the destination, they’ll scramble in and hang their head out the window in anticipation of the wind blowing back their hair and whipping the spit off their dangling tongues.” (Page 254)

“We are where we are. If we keep moving, we’ll be someplace else. We’ll know when we get there.” (Page 262)

Quotes from “Always looking up” - “Faith” Chapter

“You could say that my willingness to hear them out was an expression of my faith, my instinct that it’s always good to give something when I can. I like to think that I’m open to other people, unafraid of new ideas. (...) there was no reason why I couldn’t surrender a few minutes of my time. This was an opportunity to hear their point of view, not defend my own. All I had to do was sit down and listen.
Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in A Few Good Men, “I can handle the truth” ” (Page 160)

“I’ve always considered faith to be an aspect or facet of optimism, a cousin of, if not a synonym for, hope. A discussion of faith as religion is a more daunting proposition. I haven’t made and kept as many friends as I have by offering up my attitudes and opinions about religion. I am not a theologian, seminarian, or student of divinity. I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.” (Page 161)

“”The opposite of fear is faith” is an adage I heard often when I quit drinking. The thinking is that fear is paralyzing or even regressive, causing you to retreat in defense, while faith inspires forward progress. So why, I always wondered, does fear feature so prominently in our discussions and practice of faith? We talk about fear of God as a good thing—and being God fearing as a desirable state. I know I’m not the first to say this, and smarter people have given it more thorough examination and more eloquent expression, but that just makes no sense to me. It’s counterintuitive and, I think, confuses fear with respect. As a way of motivating people, cultivating fear is easier than investing the time and effort necessary to engender respect. Respect requires greater knowledge, and in my experience, the more you know, the less you fear.” (Page 162)

“The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. (...) It requires the faith to take risks and a rejection of the bonds of fear. I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it’s not just divinely assigned.” (Page 178)

“...in some ways, the world is as simple as I sometimes see it and often wish it to be. In other ways, it is complicated beyond any understanding.” (Page 178)


“My world as I knew it had changed in the instant the doctor pronounced my condition. As an actor, I am used to processing other people’s opinions of me—auditioners, audiences, and critics. You can take an opinion, rationalize it, and turn it back on those who offer it up as being their projections onto your reality. But it’s rare that someone can present you with some great immutable truth about yourself—something so surprising, out of left field, that you don’t even have the luxury of denial.
We do so much to protect ourselves from the truth, but what I have learned and drawn strength and comfort from, especially over the last seventeen years or so, is that the truth protects us from ourselves. That is, of course, if we can recognize it and trust it.” (Pages 179-180)

Quoting Henry David Thoreau: “In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need dear no change nor accident.” (Page 180)

“(... ) there are realities that occur in life over which I have no control or influence, realities that I can negotiate, or charm.” (Page 180)

“Whether you wield the pin yourself, (...), or the bubble is popped for you, the truth flows outside of it, and it will take you places you’d otherwise drift past.” (Page 181)

“We all have a responsibility to do what we can for those living among us, those we love and those we’ve never met.” (Page 186)

“I think one of the keys to my happiness is that I try to catch my mistakes and transgressions as quickly as possible after the fact and minimize the period of reflection.” (Page 199)

“I came to accept that any disease or condition beyond my control is, in effect, a power greater than myself. To survive this destructive energy, I must look to an even higher power. For my purposes, I need neither define it nor have others define it for me, only accept its existence. It is evident in Tracy’s love and inexhaustible friendship, the toothless gap in Esmé’s smile, Aquinah’s grace, Schuyler’s grit, Sam’s intrepid curiosity. So much to savor, so much to be grateful for. And since I’m not sure of the address to which to send my gratitude, I put it out there in everything I do.” (Page 201)

“Chris Reeve wisely parsed the difference between optimism and hope. Unlike optimism, he said, “Hope is the product of knowledge and the projection of where knowledge can take us.” If optimism is a happy-go-lucky expectation that the odds are in my favor, that things are likely to break my way, and if hope is an informed optimism, facts converting desire into possibility, then faith is the third leg of the stool.” (Page 201)
“Empathy is always better than sympathy, especially from family.” (Page 204)

Quotes from “Always looking up” - “Politics” Chapter

“As frustrated as we in the patient community are with impediments to progress put in place by George W. Bush, so too are you frustrated that we, the proponents, just don’t get it, that we’re missing the bigger picture. In that way, we two can empathize with each other, while not agreeing. This is why I brought into the political arena my concerns and my hopes that this work can produce cures and treatments, not to shame or ridicule those who disagree with me, and not to use the bully pulpit of celebrity to drown out anyone else’s voice. The opposite is true. What we want is a conversation. The only way for government to express the needs and desires of Americans is if Americans speak up and get involved. And as much as I want to make my own points, to express my own needs and desires, I know it’s crucial that differing opinions be given equal hearing.” (Page 77)

“Incurable disease is a nonpartisan problem that will require a bipartisan solution. The desire to alleviate suffering and save lives speaks not to our allegiance to any party or ideology but to our humanity.” (Page 79)

“The answer lies somewhere between faith and hope, between seeking change through a petition of God and seeking it through an exercise of political franchise.” (Page 81)

“It doesn’t happen to anybody for a reason. Sometimes bad things happen, but it’s how you deal with those things that matters.” (Page 83)

(Quoting Christopher Reeve) “Before a catastrophe, we can’t imagine coping with the burdens that might confront us in a dire moment. Then when that moment arrives, we suddenly find that we have resources inside us that we knew nothing about.” (Page 86)

(Quoting Christopher Reeve) ““Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool, or you go out in the ocean.” I tried toe-dipping, wading, treading, a few tentative strokes, and then, as if unconsciously following Chris’s advice, I found myself in some very deep, very rough water. Funny, Chris didn’t mention the sharks.” (Page 91)

(Quoting Christopher Reeve) “President Kennedy based his hopes on knowledge, and the projection of where that knowledge can take us. (...) NASA pulled off what only years earlier was sci-fi, in part, due to “a willingness not to buy into the conventional wisdom.” (Page 111)

“The foundation is about promoting and financing advances in Parkinson’s research, first, foremost, fully, and finally. Any politics needed to be on my own time, at my own expense, and under my own name.” (Page 112)

“Choosing to invest time, energy, and identity in the political process is an expression of hope. If something in our personal experience has informed or inspired us to believe that one direction or outcome is preferable to another, for not only the individual, but society as a whole, we put that belief into action through activism, advocacy, financial support of a candidate, actually running for office, or by simply casting a vote. The American political experience can therefore be viewed as optimism in the collective. Naturally, unanimity is rare, as reasonable (and not so reasonable) people are bound to disagree. Take it form me, things get a little intense when the swords come out and all you’re holding is a plowshare.” (Page 127)