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Archives - December 2008

December 1, 2008

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

– Ray Bradbury

December 2, 2008

Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness.

– Cullen Hightower

December 3, 2008

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.

– James Thurber

December 4, 2008

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

– Robert Lynd, THE BLUE LION AND OTHER ESSAYS

December 5, 2008

Character --- the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life --- is the source from which self-respect springs.

– Joan Didion, SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM

December 6, 2008

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

– Carol Burnett

December 7, 2008

If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.

– Alice Roosevelt Longworth

December 8, 2008

Never say never, for if you live long enough, chances are you will not be able to abide by its restrictions. Never is a long, undependable time, and life is too full of rich possibilities to have restrictions placed upon it.

– Gloria Swanson

December 9, 2008

Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.

– Edward Teller

December 10, 2008

Never refuse any advance of friendship, for if nine out of ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.

– Madame de Tencin

December 11, 2008

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

– Washington Irving

December 12, 2008

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

– J. D. Salinger, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

December 13, 2008

Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.

– Joel Hawes

December 14, 2008

Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.

– Evan Esar

December 15, 2008

Love is, above all else, the gift of oneself.

– Jean Anouilh

December 16, 2008

I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

– Anna Quindlen, A SHORT GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE

December 17, 2008

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

– Douglas Adams, LAST CHANCE TO SEE

December 18, 2008

Good taste is the enemy of comedy.

– Mel Brooks

December 19, 2008

The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine...

– Woody Guthrie

December 20, 2008

Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job.

– Victor Hugo

December 21, 2008

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

– Edith Sitwell

December 22, 2008

Every day holds the possibility of a miracle.

– Elizabeth David

December 23, 2008

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

– Agatha Christie

December 24, 2008

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

December 25, 2008

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!"

– Dr. Seuss, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

December 26, 2008

I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.

– Walt Disney, THE DISNEY WAY

December 27, 2008

It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts.

– Ella Fitzgerald

December 28, 2008

The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.

– Arnold Bennett

December 29, 2008

I think people don't place a high enough value on how much they are nurtured by doing whatever it is that totally absorbs them.

– Jean Shinoda Bolen

December 30, 2008

Everything comes to him who waits but a loaned book.

– Kin Hubbard

December 31, 2008

You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.

– Bonnie Prudden