Frank > Frank's Quotes

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”
― Saul Bellow

“This is how the entire course of a life can be changed: by doing nothing.”
― Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting”
― Gregory David Roberts

“It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“A good man is as strong as the right woman needs him to be.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“at first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. what we should fear and dread, of course, is that we wont stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone. for i still love you with the whole of my heart. i still love you. and sometimes, my friend, the love that i have and cant give to you, crushed the breast from my chest. soemtimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

'Why do you weep?' the goddesses asked.

'I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

'Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,' they said, 'for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.'

'But... was Narcissus beautiful?' the lake asked.

'Who better than you to know that?' the goddesses asked in wonder. 'After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!'

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

'I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.'

'What a lovely story,' the alchemist thought.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“I came to set fire to the earth. And I am watchful that the fire grow.
May the fire of love grow in our hearts.
May the fire of transformation glow in our movements.
May the fire of purification burn away our sins.
May the fire of justice guide our steps.
May the fire of wisdom illuminate our paths.
May the fire that spreads over the Earth never be extinguished.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Value those who give you constructive criticism, because without them doing so, you will never reach the peak of what you are do.”
― Unarine Ramaru

“Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”
― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall

“We can’t take material things with us when we die, but we do take our friendships to Heaven, and one day they’ll be renewed.”
― Randy Alcorn, Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Relying on one point of view is dangerous, unethical and foolish.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“In the minutia, you will find richness, texture and truth.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“For example, imagine trying to get a sense of the voters before the 2016 election as we did in our story “Ask Ohio” for 60 Minutes. When you’re in the coffee shop interviewing out-of-work steelworkers, turn the coffee cup upside down. “Made in China,” ironic. In the greasy spoon restaurant in Lorain, Ohio, notice the shops on either side of the café are boarded up. Notice the Virgin Mary standing on the shelf above the Coco Puffs. Notice the sign that reads Pull Up Your Pants! With just these observations, the reader gets a pretty good idea of what kind of place this is, who works there and who eats there. John Steinbeck called this “layering detail upon detail.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“author and journalism professor John McPhee tells his students at Princeton, “A thousand details make one impression.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“Reporting and writing are first and foremost about “seeing.” You can’t write about what you did not see and most of us are terrible at “seeing.” Here are a couple of exercises to practice. In your home, find twenty things you’ve never seen before. I promise you there are two thousand. Also, a few times a day, stop and ask yourself, “If I had to write about this place, or this person, or this moment, what are the unnoticed details that would bring my story to life?”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“Even on a tight deadline, it is often possible to write, reflect and write again. Don’t stop rewriting until your deadline makes you stop.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“Reflection is the greatest gift writers can give themselves. Write your first draft then put it away—for an hour, a day or overnight. I guarantee when you come back to it, you will see problems you didn’t expect and opportunities you hadn’t imagined.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“attempt to decipher the country that Winston Churchill described as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...”2”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“there is no democracy without journalism.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“Enemy of the American people,” in President Trump’s phrase? We are the American people. Journalists bring vitality to the national conversation. We bridge differences, serve public safety, expose corruption, constrain power and give voice to the voiceless. As Madison might say today, Freedom of the Press is the right that guarantees all the others. The stakes are high. Become a journalist. We’d be proud to have you.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“We should be profoundly skeptical when one party claims certainty and blames the other for our problems. That’s a con. You know life isn’t like that. That’s why we invented democracies in the first place.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“When people wrap their point of view in the flag, notice the number of stars in which they have clothed themselves. There are fifty. There are no versions of the Stars and Stripes that eliminate conservative states or liberal ones. There are fifty stars. The blue field on which those stars shine isn’t called “the Union” for nothing. If you honor the flag, if you like to stand during the national anthem, you are adopting all the stars. Our flag is the very image of compromise. If you chose America, you chose all of America, “Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all.” No democracy has survived any other way. It is easier to listen to the drone of confirming information, to reject, out of hand, ideas that question what we believe. But democracy is not for the lazy.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times

“United We Stand” has never been the secret to America’s success. We are an amalgam of all the peoples of the world. “Divided We Stand” is our strength. With all our diversity, in all our languages and cultures, we should agree on one big idea—each of us belongs, each of us contributes and each of us must be heard. We are all woven into the tapestry of stars. That is a fight worth winning. And a truth worth telling.”
― Scott Pelley, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times