Stephen Perlstein > Stephen's Quotes

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
― Fred Rogers

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Any idea withheld is an idea taken away.”
― Seth Godin, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

“He told her he was tired and didn't want any mechanical intervention. "No breathing tubes! No shocks, and no pushing on my chest. Just let me go." He was willing to try treatments that would make him feel better (comfort care), Rebecca says, such as wound care and pain management, as well as the treatments he was already getting.
But, he said, "If they are giving it to me just to give it to me, then forget about it."
At that point, Rebecca turned to her grandmother, who would be the ultimate decision maker should her grandfather become unable to make his own choices. "Well, darling," she said, "of course I would tell the doctors to do everything possible to keep my husband alive." Rebecca was stunned. She'd just had a lovely, candid, and specific discussion with her grandfather about his wishes. Hadn't her grandmother heard what he'd said?
She then asked her grandmother to tell her what she had heard her grandfather say, and her grandmother repeated his wishes but said she loved her husband too much to let him go. "If he is with me just one more day, it would be worth it to me," she told her granddaughter. It would be worth it to her even if he were
"hooked up to machines and not able to talk to me."
Rebecca then turned back to her grandfather and asked, "Did you just hear what Grandma said?" He said he did. She asked how he felt about her going against his wishes and requesting a feeding tube, ventilator, shocks, and other treatments he had said he did not want. "Is that okay with you?" she asked in disbelief.
Her grandfather said it was. "I am ready to go, but if it helps your grandmother to feel that she did everything possible for me, even if it is because she doesn't want me to go, that is okay. She is the one who has to go on living with her decision. If this is what she wants, then this is what I want because I love her."
Rebecca realized in that moment that her grandfather's wishes were being honored; above all else, he wanted a death that his wife could live with.”
― BJ Miller

“Four Kids of Good
“This is what I saw in my head.” (It’s good to me,)”
“This is accepted and admired by a specific circle of people.” (It’s good for the tribe.)
“I got paid well for this.” (I’m clear about what matters to me.)
“This is really popular, it’s a hit.” (We struck a chord with the masses.)”
― Seth Godin, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

“That’s Harris all over—so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“I think, ladies and gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have a socialist outlook, that we should at least permit this socialist economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it stand on its own feet for ten or fifteen years. Then we will see what it looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations. It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced to relax.

Thus, all I ask of you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund—stop helping it. When has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“As fantastical as America’s space ambitions might have seemed, sending a man into space was starting to feel like a straightforward task compared to putting black and white students together in the same Virginia classrooms.”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures

“In my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The good thing about everything being so fucked up is that no matter where you look, there is great work to be done.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts