"I cannot afford to waste my time making money."
~Louis Agassiz (thanks jG)

"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."
~Lord Alfred Tennyson (thanks Anna)

"If you want to have a life, you will have to build one."
~Elaine Reid, Important Tips

"You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep."
~Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

"In my learned opinion, often the best thing you can do for a wound is to pour saltwater in it."
~Anna Groth-Shive, Endless Yeses

"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time."

~Hermann Hesse (thanks Mark)

"You look strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it like a watermelon."
~John Steinbeck (thanks Anna)

"I want a million dollars!"
~me to The Universe

"No, you have a million dollars, thank you Universe."
~Elaine Reid, correcting my statement for me

"Oh, ok... I have a million dollars, thank you Universe. Please send me map."
~me

"I have this fear that I'll never overcome my fear."
~Elaine Reid, to me, while eating oatmeal

"I by no means am done discovering, but I have seen the outlines of my shore. It took me so long just to arrive at the knowledge that the destination I seek is in fact there -- but it's not some distant island I'm sloshing at sea to reach, it is in me. So close. So far. Slowly I add a new coordinate to my map. X moves around marking a different spot each day. Some days I am courageous enough and patient enough and strong enough to unearth the treasure, and some days I stay anchored in the boat, shivering in the cold of my own fog. I let myself have those days. I am learning to let myself have all the days, the glittering gold and ruby days, the gray and unfriendly days too. They are all my days. I am all my days. What matters is that I believe in my island, and it's not even about reaching it, it's about knowing it's there."
~me, hopeful romantics

"Cities offer up a lot of space to not park in."
~Ron Toews (aka Dad), on trying to find a parking spot in Seattle

"Today is just a good day in disguise."
~Paul Venghaus (thanks JG)

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."
~Leo Tolstoy (thanks Mom)

"Patience has its limits. Take it too far and it's cowardice."
~George Jackson (thanks Mel)

"Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards."
~e.e. cummings (thanks Mom)

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it."
~Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"There are so many clues and feelings in the world that it makes a mystery and a mystery means there's a puzzle to be solved. Once you think like that you're hooked on probably finding a meaning, and there' many avenues in life where we're given little indications that the mystery can one day be solved. we get little proofs, — not the big proof — but the little proofs that keep us searching."
~David Lynch (thanks Sara)

"Speak the following lines out loud:
I love everything about me
I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain
I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing
I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself"
~Rob Brezsny

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. The world needs people who have come alive.”
~Howard Thurman (thanks Mel)

"To become wise, one must wish to have certain experiences and run, as it were, into their gaping jaws. This, of course, is very dangerous; many a wise guy has been swallowed."
~Friedrich Nietzsche (thanks Elaine)

"All lovers live by longing, and endure; summon a vision and declare it pure."
~Theodore Roethke

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
~Oscar Wilde

"Look for the truth, whatever the truth may be--good, bad, or unsettling."
~Martha Graham, Blood Memory

"I know my deadline for deciding when my deadline will be, will be soon."
~Jamie Masters, on setting deadlines

"I can move objects with my mind if I use my hands."
~Demitri Martin (thanks Joey)

"This head dangle is definitely pushing the red wine around."

~John Gillilan, after hanging upside down

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."

~Thomas Jefferson (thanks Anna)

"Don't ask what are you good at. Ask what are you good for. Or just ignore both sentences."
~Elaine Reid, Important Tips

"Beginnings are only difficult without any action."
~Byron (thanks Mel)