Archives - January 2009

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

As I grow older, I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me.

Adventure is not outside; it is within.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Ideas without action are worthless.

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge.

Seven days without laughter makes one weak.

Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.

Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.

Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

The American presidency will demand more than ringing manifestos issued from the rear of the battle. It will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight; that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads...

The more you read
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go.

Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best --- and therefore never scrutinize or question.

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.

Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond.

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines --- so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.

Procrastination isn't the problem, it's the solution. So procrastinate now, don't put it off.

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.