"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It's easy to forget what a house full of siblings sounds like. Or what a town in the thick of deer season looks like. Or what sleet turning to snow feels like. Or what free food from parents fridge tastes like. But it's all coming back to me."
~SKL from Fowlerville, kayekilla.blogspot.com

"When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth." ~Kurt Vonnegut

“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination." ~Souza

"Don't let a hot date turn into a due date." ~Poster in a Planned Parenthood

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." ~Charles Dickens

"Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect."

~Oren Arnold

"The whole planet is just dripping with Jesus."
~Ron Toews, Christmas Eve

On Ron Toews and his remarkable left-handed video gaming skills:

"Dude, your dad's the next youtube video!" ~jG Francis

"Maybe he's the Messiah of Wii Bowling." ~Heather Toews

"Anytime you take two whole people and try to meld their lives together, it's going to be difficult. Trust in the process." ~Rosalee Toews (aka Mom), on love

"Of course that never does any good. You start pulling 'em out and soon you'll be bald." ~Elizabeth Toews (Kansas Grandma), on gray hairs.

"I'm actually proud of Britney for not killing herself yet." ~Mark Nehlich, on Ms. Spears

"Mom, I've been poopin' for years, I'm okay--99.9% of the time, I'm okay." ~Joey Toews

"Love is implicit in every connection. It should be. Thus when absent it makes us insane. It breaks our equilibrium and we have to flounder for reasons. When we pass by another person without telling them we love them, it's cruel and wrong and we all know this. We live in a constant state of denial and imbalance." ~Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity

"Writing for one is hard. Writing for two is impossible. And sitting at home writing about cowboys with cancer while Betsy Sue teaches fifth-grade music casts a pall and poses a question mark over every word you write." ~Dave Hickey, The Believer, Forty-Ninth Issue: The Art Issue

"No decent art ever came out of self-pity."
~Rene Steinke, Holy Skirts

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around." ~ Willie Nelson

"Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. This is the secret discipline. It is a refusal to let the creative act be dissolved away in immediate sense experience, and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope." ~Ruben Alves

"I'm the last night unicorn." ~Jamie Masters

"A little bit of Gandhi, a whole lot of Van Damme."
~Michele McIntire, and her recipe for radness

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." ~Leonardo da Vinci

"We need the resilience to survive the continuous shattering of our fondest ideas of ourselves. But if there is anything that makes life exciting, it's the sense of inquiry, the ongoing discovery." ~Rosemary Sullivan, Labyrinth of Desire

"And it's a squib kick into the arms of a big man." ~Joe Buck, Dallas vs. Detroit

"It smells like homemade college spaghetti." ~jG Francis, on his B.O.

"If she calmed down, there would be no more poems."
~Rene Steinke, Holy Skirts

"New rule, no singing unless you know the words."
~Heather Toews to her annoying older sister on a family road trip somewhere between San Francisco and LA

"Thank god for curious girls." ~Tommy Burke

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us... And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
~Marianne Williamson

"Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves." ~Walter Anderson

"All I know is that I don't want to lose the person who makes me feel comfortable enough to sing in front of them and who feels comfortable enough to dance like an idiot in front of me."
~jG Francis, on making it work

"I'm working on the gut and I'm planning on shaving my legs soon." ~Carly Miller, on getting some