I collected most of these quotes between the ages of 18 and 23. I kept them in a book I would refer to for inspiration. Some cheered me when I was down. Others accurately expressed thoughts my confused mind could not. This book served as the constant reminder that others had felt the ways I had felt and made it through, at least long enough to express their thoughts. They inspired me in times I desperately needed the inspiration.

“After a while 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 begin to 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 begin to learn to build your roads on today because tomorrow’s roads ground is too uncertain for paths. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone else 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

“Experience is the most brutal of all teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn.”

~ C.S. Lewis

“I hate quotations.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.”

~ Evan Hardin

“I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent.”

~ Ashleigh Brilliant

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”

~ John F. Kennedy

TRUST IN GOD, BUT LOCK YOUR CAR.

“I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

~ Thomas Edison

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.”

~ Erica Jong

“You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures.”

~ Charles C. Noble

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for?”

~ Robert Browning

“If you haven’t turned rebel by twenty, you’ve got no heart. If you haven’t turned establishment by thirty, you’ve got no brains.”

~ Kevin Spacey, Swimming with Sharks

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

~ M.K. Gandhi

“If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry. It’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry. It’ll change.”

~ John A. Simone, Jr.

“Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.”

~ Minna Antrum

“The greatest of all faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”

~ Carlyle

“If you believe everything you read, then you’d better not read.”

~ Japanese Proverb

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

~ Winston Churchill

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out my nose.”

~ Woody Allen

“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”

~ Mel Brooks

“An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to The William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.”

~ Dan Rather

“It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, ‘We are born alone…we live alone…we die alone…and anything in between that can give us the illusion that we’re not, we cling to.”

~ Gabriel Byrne

“When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.”

~ Unknown

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

~ Albert Einstein

“I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense. I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.”

~ Sir Anthony Hopkins

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

~ Albert Einstein

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”

~ John Luther

“I like a man who grins when he fights.”

~ Winston Churchill

“Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which is why I guess several of us died of tuberculosis.”

~ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

“If God can handle eternity, surely I can handle today.”

~ Mother Teresa

“There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.”

~ Archibald McLeish

“What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.”

~ Dave Barry

“All my life I wanted to be someone. I guess I should have been more specific.”

~ Jane Wagner

“Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.”

~ Erica Jong

“You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.”

~ Anonymous

“A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.”

~ Elbert Hubbard

“Every man has his follies, and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.”

~ Josh Billings

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

“Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, or what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not. Life isn’t about whether you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are. Life just isn’t about that. But life is about you love and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion. It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love. Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance and building confidence. It’s about what you say and what you mean. It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have. Most of all, it’s about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could have never been achieved otherwise. These choices are what life is about.”

~ Nike Ad

“You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

~ Homer Simpson

“I think I hate Ted Koppel. No wait…I find him informative and witty. Goodnight.”

~ Homer Simpson

“Marge, it’s 3am! Shouldn’t you be cooking something?”

~ Homer Simpson

“If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.”

~ Dr. Seuss

“My friends give me purple flowers and orange tea/On goosedown quilts and turquoise chairs/We greet each other in a wild profusion of words/And wave farewell amidst the wonderment of air/And in the laughing times we know that we are lucky/And in the quiet times we know that we are blessed/And we will not be alone.”

~ Dar Williams, Arrival

“Hoo-ston is not jumping out of a window!” …”It’s Houston and it’s practically the same thing!”

~ Julie Andrews and Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women

“Somewhere in the corner of my mind/ I’m not a fool, completely blind/ But even though he’s hooked me on his line/ I find the pleasure’s been mine.”

~ Cleo Laine, The Lies of Handsome Men

“I am amazed by the sayings of Christ. They seem truer than anything I have ever read. And they certainly turn the world upside down.”

~ Katharine Butler Hathaway

“She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in a church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in a church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”

~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“In great cities where people of ability abound, there is always a feverish urge to keep ahead, to set the pace, to adopt each new fashion in thought and theory as well as in dress — or in undress.”

~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“Comedy is very controlling — you are making people laugh. It is there in the phrase”making people laugh.” You feel completely in control when you hear a wave of laughter coming back that you have caused.”

~ Gilda Radner

“I have come to the conclusion, after many years of sometimes sad experience, that you cannot come to any conclusion at all.”

~ Vita Sackville-West

“When I can no longer create anything, I’ll be done for.”

~ Coco Chanel

“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.”

~ Rita Mae Brown

“It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God.”

~ Mary Daly

“One must also accept that one has ‘uncreative’ moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass. One must have the courage to call a halt, to feel empty and discouraged.”

~ Etty Hillesum

“This book of essays…has all the depth and glitter of a worn dime.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

~ Mary McCarthy

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“The House Beautiful is the play lousy.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“This play [John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln] holds the season’s record, thus far, with a run of four evening performances and just one matinee. By an odd coincidence, it ran just five performances too many.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”

~ Dorothy Parker (“Constant Reader”) review of The House at Pooh Corner

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

“A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing in nothing.”

~ Maya Angelou

“Like many people in personal turmoil, she rose late, didn’t dress other than to cloak herself in her dressing gown, and she fell asleep easily throughout the day.”

~ Carol Bly

“She felt again that small shiver that occurred to her when events hinted at a destiny being played out, of unseen forces intervening.”

~ Dorothy Gilman

“‘The doctor says I’m going blind,’ she told the children, but privately she’d intended to do no such thing.”

~ Anne Tyler

“The devil never seems so busy as where the saints are.”

~ Elizabeth Rundle Charles

“I can’t change my sex. But you can change your policy.”

~ Helen Kirkpatrick

“One more drink and I’d have been under the host.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“Do not allow your children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth.”

~ Fran Lebowitz

“It made me feel good. To know the nuts still have a chance to take over the world.”

~ Judith Guest

“A platform is something a candidate stands for and the voters fall for.”

~ Gracie Allen

“All the other candidates are making speeches about how much they have done for their country, which is ridiculous. I haven’t done anything yet, and I think it’s just common sense to send me to Washington and make me do my share.”

~ Gracie Allen

“Spilling your guts is just exactly as charming as it sounds.”

~ Fran Lebowitz

“The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must perforce to come to an end.”

~ Baroness Orczy

“Scratch a lover, and find a foe.”

~ Dorothy Parker

“We is terrific.”

~ Diana Ross, referring to the Supremes