"You're being a smart person... I don't know what smart is." ~Conner McKinley, to Jamie Masters on her decision to call it a night

"Dreams it seems are like fish out of water and in this dry land life, we have to find the cool pools to swim in, to keep our hope afloat." ~Yours truly, hopefulromantics.blogspot.com

"It gets on your windows and you can't see out. It looks like you haven't washed your windows for a hundred years."
~Grace Dover, on the nondairy creamer that rained from the sky in Chester, South Carolina in 1969

"I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years...Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions." ~Wilbur Wright in 1908, (Orville flew two years after Wilbur expressed his doubts, not fifty.)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man*." ~George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
*or woman

"They always look dusty to me." ~jG Francis, on his discomfort at seeing National Geographic breasts

"You cannot race in this love. You cannot race where there is no beginning and no end." ~Hawksley Workman, Hawksley Burns For Isadora

"There is no room for pity, of anything. In a bleeding heart I should find only exhilaration in the richness of the red." ~Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

"Be in love with yr life
Accept loss forever
No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
Youre a Genius all the time" ~Jack Karouac, #4, 19, 24, and 29 from Belief & Technique for Modern Prose List of Essentials

"It's the only way to go. Freelance. Do the freelance dance." ~Sara Kaye Larson, 48 hours after quitting her job and following her dreams

"Be confident,' he advised me. 'Be confident even in your mistakes. In Allah there is no wrong road. There is only the road you must travel.'

'And if the road leads nowhere?'

He shrugged, 'Turn your Nowhere into Somewhere." ~Jeanette Winterson, The Powerbook

"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me." ~author unknown

"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become." ~author unknown

"I love the fact we've done it all backwards and where we're going next is probably equally wonky." ~Garth Jennings to Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times, on making Son of Rambow

"Come on Andruw, baby steps. Let's make contact." ~the Dodgers fan behind me to Andruw Jones, with his less than great batting average thus-far with the Dodgers

"It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear." ~Norm, Cheers

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road." ~Walt Whitman, Leave of Grass--Song of the Open Road

"I do have a tendency to play with children like animals." ~Rafael Ortega, on babysitting

"Don't start the evil." ~Vincent Gallo, Buffalo '66

"Maybe these are my glory days and I'm not even realizing it because they don't involve a ball." ~Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother." ~Abraham Lincoln

"I love pianos like I love cats and horses." ~Rose, the 71-year-old neighbor who lives in her motor home.

"Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found." ~Lao Ze

"The place across the street has the best bagels and cream cheese and it's not even a bagel shop. Can you believe it?!" ~Ann Yu, and her enthusiasm for the unexpected

"Jage has a mustache?? GROSS!!!" ~Heather Toews (aka little sister), via email, on her feelings about my boyfriends facial hair.

"Pets are not the answer." ~bumper sticker on the back of a green Mazda with Kentucky license plates.

“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.” ~César Chávez

"Dude, if you think about it, there's no car that's radder than a Trans Am." ~Fudge, to Buff on the 5 freeway headed north at 1:16 in the morning.

"When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:

To love more,
And be happy." ~Hafiz, The Gift

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~Frank Herbert

"One should count each day a seperate life." ~Seneca