Shay > Shay's Quotes

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“prejudice unchallenged is prejudice perpetuated.”
― Christian Rudder, Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves

“The idea was there from the beginning: equality. And yet you can read every page of your pocket Constitution and you will not find, in the original Constitution, the word equal, or equality, even though equality was a main theme of the Declaration of Independence. The word equal becomes a part of the Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment.”
― Jeffrey Rosen, Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

“The best is the enemy of good.”
― Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

“Descartes saw his own singular consciousness as proof of existence. Practioners of ubuntu see our existence as conditional on others' existence.”
― Michael Schur, How to be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

“Things do not change; we change.”
― henry david thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Here is one of the most important things to remember when doing research that involves regression analysis: Try not to kill anyone. You can even put a little Post-it note on your computer monitor: “Do not kill people with your research.” Because some very smart people have inadvertently violated that rule.”
― Charles Wheelan, Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

“People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“I would never again be made a foot soldier in a conflict I did not understand.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“It's a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”
― David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

“To go back to Brown, a concern the United States government had was definitely part of the picture. At that time, we were in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the State Department filed a brief in Brown v. Board urging the Court to end what was basically apartheid in America. It said, we are being embarrassed constantly by the Soviet Union charging that the United States is a racist society. Please, Court, help us to end that era.”
― Jeffrey Rosen, Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law

“In my long life, I have seen many changes. Changes for the better. The most important is that we are not using the talent of all the people, not just half of them.”
― Jeffrey Rosen, Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law

“the things lurking around inside the mind can be just as dangerous as tangible threats.”
― Colleen Hoover, Verity

“Death by routine”
― Colleen Hoover, Verity

“Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Hmm... Well I guess everybody tells me i am too small and too slow to make a diference in this world but i am makimg a diference in my own world and i hope that is enough”
― Jomny Sun, Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too

“I love art. To experience sombodys art is to be invited into a silent conversation they are having with themself.”
― Jomny Sun, Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too

“We internalize traits we observe in others as a way to honor and remember them. We are all living memorials.”
― Jomny Sun, Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too

“oh no! a ghobst! please dont haunt me i dont want to be afraid
umm i literaly experienced the horors of death so maybe this isnt abot you”
― Jomny Sun, Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too

“Just accept that you’re not a genius. Once I told myself that, I was able to finally write.”
― Ali Wong, Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life

“For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Sometimes making the world a better place just involves creating space for the people who are already in it.”
― Jodi Picoult, Mad Honey

“You look . . . better than before."
Was that a compliment? I could have sworn Lucien gave Tamlin an encouraging nod.
"And you hair is . . . clean.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses