Andi M. > Andi M.'s Quotes

“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

“When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“I don’t think it should be socially acceptable for people to say they are “bad with names.” No one is bad with names. That is not a real thing. Not knowing people’s names isn’t a neurological condition; it’s a choice. You choose not to make learning people’s names a priority. It’s like saying, “Hey, a disclaimer about me: I’m rude.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“All women love Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy, Mark Darcy, George VI—at this point he could play the Craigslist Killer and people would be like, 'Oh my God, the Craigslist Killer has the most boyish smile!”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn’t conversation. It’ll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say, “Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“Maybe the point is that any marriage is work, but you may as well pick work that you like.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“If I gave my mother a knitted scarf she'd be worried I was wasting my time doing stupid stuff like knitting instead of school work. Presenting a homemade knitted object to my parents was actually like handing them a detailed backlog of my idleness.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“I’m the one who looks at the infant, smiles nervously, and as my contribution to small talk, robotically announces to the parent, “Your child looks healthy and well cared for.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.”
― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

“The point is, it only traumatized me because I had the time to be traumatized. I want to be so famous and busy that only ever find these insults amusing, and chuckle at the good-naturedly before I get on my private jet to be a UN ambassador to Cameroon, or wherever.”
― Mindy Kaling

“And this actress, this poor skinny actress who so clearly lost weight to play the likable lead, has to say things like ‘shut up you guys! I love cheesecake! If I want to eat an entire cheesecake, I will!’ If you look closely, you can see this woman’s ribs through the dress she’s wearing--that’s how skinny she is, this cheesecake-loving cow.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.”
― John Muir, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures

“Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

“How wild it was, to let it be.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Lesson learned? When people say, "You really, really must" do something, it means you don't really have to. No one ever says, "You really, really must deliver the baby during labor." When it's true, it doesn't need to be said.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“Confidence is just entitlement. Entitlement has gotten a bad rap because it's used almost exclusively for the useless children of the rich, reality TV stars, and Conrad Hilton Jr., who gets kicked off an airplane for smoking pot in the lavatory and calling people peasants or whatever. But entitlement in and of itself isn't so bad. Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you'd better make sure you deserve it.”
― Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?

“Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn't always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine.”
― Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?

“What’s so wrong with effort, anyway? It means you care.”
― Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?

“That’s why every doctor on TV is a drug addict, a sociopath, or just plain mega-rude. Doctors can do anything they want!”
― Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?

“Where we are from... [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he'd be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.”
― Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son

“Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.”
― Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son

“Little sleep, no investment portfolio, no family around, no hot water. On an evening a few days after arriving in Cange, I wondered aloud what compensation he got for these various hardships. He told me, “If you’re making sacrifices, unless you’re automatically following some rule, it stands to reason that you’re trying to lessen some psychic discomfort. So, for example, if I took steps to be a doctor for those who don’t have medical care, it could be regarded as a sacrifice, but it could also be regarded as a way to deal with ambivalence.” He went on, and his voice changed a little. He didn’t bristle, but his tone had an edge: “I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can’t buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that, because you should feel ambivalent. Comma.” This was for me one of the first of many encounters with Farmer’s”
― Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

“What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“Friendship- my definition- is built on two things. Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go