Archives - September 2021

We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those pieces and help us remember how we were. We don't know these lost people but if you look around, you'll find someone just like them.

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

The longest journey is the journey inward.

Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we don't.

Before the reward, there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.

If you can't be funny, be interesting.

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

To grow mature is to separate more distinctly, to connect more closely.

For me and my family personally, September 11 was a reminder that life is fleeting, impermanent, and uncertain. Therefore, we must make use of every moment and nurture it with affection, tenderness, beauty, creativity, and laughter.

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

I've always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.

I simply cannot understand the passion that some people have for making themselves thoroughly uncomfortable and then boasting about it afterwards.

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.

If you are losing your leisure, look out, you may be losing your soul.

In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.

The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.

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

Good taste is the enemy of comedy.

Treasure the love you have received above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.

We writers of series fiction tend to idealize ourselves in our characters, giving them attributes we wish we possessed and ever more interesting lives.

It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.

The best fiction stays with you and changes you.