• "Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out."-One Tree Hill
• And I could write a song, a hundred miles long. Well, that's where I belong, and you belong with me. You belong with me, not swallowed in the sea. Coldplay
• "I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom." - andy warhol
• “Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe; no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its shame, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.” - Max Ehrman
• After awhile you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security, and you learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you really do have worth.

- Veronica A. Shoffstall

• There’s a trick to the “graceful exit.” It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out. - Ellen Goodman
• Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted-John Lennon
• "The greatest single cause of Athiesm in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelieveable."

~DC talk

• "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." -Catcher in the Rye, J.D.Salinger
• .people don't want their lives fixed. nobody wants their problems solved. their dramas. their distractions. their stories resolved. their messes cleaned up. because what would they have left? just the big scary unknown. (chuck palahniuk, survivor)
• Some nights alone, he thinks of her. And some nights alone, she thinks of him. Some nights these thoughts occur at the same moment, and Ray and Mirabelle are connected without even knowing it. - Ray Porter, from the film, "Shopgirl"
• .when i like people immensely i never tell their names to anyone. it is like surrendering a part of them. i have grown to love secrecy. it seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. (the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde)
• .when someone suddenly disappears from your life like that, love naturally dies. but my heart still aches whenever i think of him. (milk by tamaki daido)
• .Harvey Fierstein: "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."
• ."You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore?" Andrew (Garden State)
• ."the role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say" -Anais Nin
• .“I believe we must create what we most need to find. I make journals to understand, to vent to dream up and mostly to untangle. who I am becoming. I don’t aim for pretty, I aim for release. trust the mess. trust yourself. leave ripples.” - sabrina ward harrison
• ."Cover the canvas at first go, and then work on till you see nothing more to add... Don't proceed according to the rules and principles, but paint was you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhersitantly, for it is best not to lose the first impression" - Picasso
• ."everything is nature"-gary snyder
• "Because sometimes you have something you need to say but you can't because the words won't come out or you get scared or you feel stupid, so if you could write a song and sing it then you could say what you need to say and it would be beautiful and people would listen and you wouldn't make a complete idiot out of yourself, but all of us can't be songwritters so some of us will never be able to say what we're thinking or what we want other people to know that we're thinking and we'll never get the chance to make things right ever again." - Gilmore Girls
• .To me being perfect is not about that score board out there, its not about winning, its about you and your relationship to yourslef and your family and friends, being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye,and know you didnt let them down becasue you told them the truth, and that truth is that you did everything that you could, there wasnt one more thing you coulda done, can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart, with joy in your heart. If you can do that gentleman then your perfect." - Friday Night Lights
• "To grow is to go beyond what you are today.

stand up as yourself. do not imitate. Do not pretend to have achieved your goal, and do not try to cut corners. Just try to grow." ~Svami Prajnanpad

• "We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance." -Japanese proverb
• "If you are truly strong, there is little need to emphasize it to yourself or to others. Best to take another tack entirely and direct your attention where you fear most to look. You can do this by allowing yourself to feel, even to cry, to not have to have opinions about everything, to not appear invincible or unfeeling to others, but instead to be in touch with and appropriately open about your feelings. What looks like weakness is actually where your strength lies. And what looks like strength is often weakness, an attempt to cover up fear; this is an act or facade, however convincing it might appear to others or even to yourself." -John Kabat-Zinn
• "Clearing clutter is about letting go and trusting the process of life to bring you what you need when you need it." -Karen Kingston (Clearing Clutter with Feng Shui)
• "Only when we expose ourselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."-christine miller
• "When you are up against a wall, be still and put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources, to see over the wall." --Carl Jung
• "Fear is a habit. Fear can be taught and is taught constantly. Almost all fear is fear of the unknown. Therefore, what's the remedy? To become acquainted with the thing you fear." -Peace Pilgrim
• "there is nothing in the world that should not be expressed in such a way that an affectionate seven-year-old can see and understand it." -Tolstoy

and the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

(adrienne rich)

we must go live to feed the hungry. stand beside the broken. we must go. stepping forward keep us from just singing. move us into action. we must go. fill us up and send us out.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

• I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody

--Willa Cather, "My Antonía

• "...trying to find equivalents for things in words helps me find equivalents in painting. That is the reason for this journal. Everything is all connected up. Different paths lead to the great "it", the thing we try to get at by hook and by crook." -Emily Carr (fr-Hundreds and Thousands)
• i do not care what car you drive. where you live. if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone. if your clothes are this year's cutting edge. if your trust fund is unlimited. if you are A-list B-list or never heard of you list. i only care about the words that flutter from your mind. they are the only thing you truly own. the only thing i will remember you by. i will not fall in love with your bones and skin. i will not fall in love with the places you have been. i will not fall in love with anything but the words that flutter from your extraordinary mind. - andre jordan
• "If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me."

-The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

• I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."

—Jack Kerouac

• Custom-Made Bride by Kurt Vonnegut

"You are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time, and make it a work of art'? Your life isn't a work of art ---it's a thirdhand Victorian whatnot shelf, complete with someone else's collection of seashells and hand-carved elephants."

• Mere Christianity by CSLewis:

"There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality."

• Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

~G.K. Chesterton

• "We are called to make financial sacrifices and personal sacrifices for the sake of Christ. And when we live beyond our ability it invites God into the equation of our lives. In fact, human sacrifices set the stage for supernatural miracles! At the end of the day: we'll never regret one penny of money; one ounce of energy; or one second of time invested in the kingdom."

-Mark Batterson

• "Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a living breathing thing which belonged to everybody, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - its wet." — Banksy
• "It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things." - Daniel Handler
• “when someone wants to talk about a dream you can never say “I don’t care.” You have to care. You just have to stand there and listen because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation. Its a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.” -chuck klosterman
• "Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly if there wasn't someone somewhere laughing?"

-Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

• "Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are."

-Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

• ""In order to swim one takes off all one's clothes - in order to aspire to the truth, one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one's inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc, before one is sufficiently naked." -Kierkegaard
• "Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” -Albert Einstein
• And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

— Roald Dahl

• "there is no use in trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the QUeen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."--Lewis Carrol
• "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."-Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."-Booker T Washington
• "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity"-Horace Mann
• “Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game." Will Durant
• “It doesn’t hurt to be optimistic.You can always cry later." Lucimar Santos de Lima
• "If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." Vincent Van Gogh
• "“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. Jane Austen ( Northanger Abbey)
• "“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein
• "“What could be more beautiful than a dear old lady growing wise with age? Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it. Brigitte Bardot
• "“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. Ferdinand Foch
• "“I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things…. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. Leo Buscaglia
• "“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short. Brian Andreas
• "“I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling. Haruki Murakami
• “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. Christian Larsen
• “Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. Bill Cosby
• "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." --Howard Thurman
• "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." —Mother Teresa
• "The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life. Pride destroys our gratitude and sets up selfishness in its place. How much happier we are in the presence of a grateful and loving soul, and how careful we should be to cultivate, through the medium of a prayerful life, a thankful attitude toward God and man!” - Joseph F. Smith
• "Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” - Mark Twain
• With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? - Oscar Wilde
• right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. - william penn
• "To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be."- Anna Louise Strong
• "you know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." - paul sweeney
• pain is temporary. it may last a minute or an hour, a day or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. if i quit however the pain will last forever. --lance armstrong

• "when i stand before god at the end of my life, i would hope i have not one single bit of talent left, and could say "i used everything you gave me." (erma bombeck)"
• "It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade."

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

• "I don’t see myself as angry, although other people see that. I just see myself as a short, dumpy guy with bad feet, and I’m passionate. […] When I speak, I speak passionately. I do. It’s not anger. I mean, that little 17-year-old boy, he’s grown up. He’s a man now. And when I was angry, when I was younger, I was in a cocoon. Now I’m a beautiful, black butterfly." -Terry Gross
• ""There are two great rules of life: never tell everything at once."

Ken Venturi

• "Even when you cut education to the bone, you do not cut arts and music education, because arts and music education IS bone, it is structural, it is essential."

Rachel Maddow

• "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."--Aristotle
• "When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge" -Tuli Kupferberg
• "Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom."- Marilyn Ferguson
• "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give."- Winston Churchill
• "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."- Grace Hopper
• "There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go."- Tennessee Williams
• "Cover the canvas at first go, and then work on until you see nothing more to add...Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhesitantly for it is best not to lose the first impression". -Picasso
• "laws may not change hearts but they can restrain the heartless...and by changing their behavior their hearts may follow".--mlk jr
• "everyone knows how to talk but no one knows what to say"-nick hornby
• "learning isn't predictable"-gord peteran
• "Life is hard, kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it, fight for it and be a fucking man about how you live it. If you're too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should leave, 'cause you're dead already."-pg 107 a million little pieces
• "it does not exist because of you--you exist because of it! you have come because it exists"
• "i have reflected many times upon our rigid search. It has shown me that everything is illuminated in light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out. Like you say, inside out"
• "i'm sending you this because we have shared something to exist for, and in case anyone comes searching"---the last quotes are from the movie everything is illuminated
• I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not only because I can see it, but because I can see everything by it.

— C.S. Lewis

• "There is a subtle difference between a mission and a promise. A mission is something you strive to accomplish--a promise is something you are compelled to keep. One is individual, the other is shared. When a mission and a promise are one and the same... that's wehn mountains are moved and races are won"--Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of Susan G. Kolmen for the Cure
• "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."-C.S. Lewis
• So he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

-Catherine from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

• "You cannot connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference."--Steve Job
• “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”--Joan Didion
• "it is in our suffering together that we find out we are not alone. we find out who really loves us. We find out that with these people around us, we can make it through anything. And that gives us something to celebrate." --pg 170 velvet elvis
• "If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus."--Blue like jazz 185
• "I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unloveable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a being that is love. We learn that we are loveable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why god tells us so so many times to love each other" pg 146-147 of Blue like Jazz
• I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing.

Through every dark night, theres a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up.... and handle it -- 2pac

• Yes, but its the way you'll tell her, the way you'll sort of shame her, mentioning that not only did your parents die of cancer, your father of lung cancer, but that you don't want the smoke around your little brother, blah blah and its the way you'll say it, you'll want to make this poor woman feel like a leper, particularily because she rolls her own cigarettes, which even I admit is doubly sad, but see, you want her to feel like a pariah, like a lower form of ife, because thatswhat, deep down, you feel she is, what you feel anyone tethered to any addiction is. And now you feel that you have the moral authority to pass judgement on these people," pg 188 "Heartbreaking works of a staggering genius"
• "After I saw Todd Sparrow something deep inside me began to change. It was not a big change and I didn't shave my head and I didn't really think any differently about my life or HIlside or anything like taht. But one glimpse of Todd and you immediately realized how limited you were and all the things you could do if you could just break out of your normal existence and stop worrying about what everyone thought."--Girl, by Blake Nelson
• "I like LIVING, breathing better than working...My art is that of living: each second. Each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, its a sort of constant euphoria."--marcel duehamp