Crystal > Crystal's Quotes

“Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially “on,” we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: “I’m okay, you’re okay—in small doses.”
― Jonathan Rauch

“A vision without execution is an hallucination.”
― Jeffrey E. Garten, The Mind Of The CEO: The World's Business Leaders Talk About Leadership, Responsibility The Future Of The Corporation, And What Keeps Them Up At Night

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
― John Anster, The First Part Of Goethe's Faust

“So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but “didn’t have time to read,” I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in … Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy.
There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Just Fine

“Don't compare her to sunshine and roses when she's clearly orchids and moonlight.”
― Melody Lee, Moon Gypsy

“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try" to do things. You simply "must" do things.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Write. Don't think. Relax.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“You deserve every star in the galaxy laid out at your feet and a thousand diamonds in your hair. You deserve someone who'll run with you as far and as fast as you want to. Holding your hand, not holding you back.”
― Jay Kristoff, Illuminae

“Perhaps bravery is simply the face humanity wraps around its collective madness.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“The universe owes you nothing...It has already given you everything, after all. It was here long before you, and it will go on long after you. The only way it will remember you is if you do something worthy of remembrance.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“Part of being alive is having life change us. The people around us, the events we live through, all of them shape us. And that's what I think you're afraid of. Maybe not of dying. But of this you, the you you've become, ceasing to exist.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“She runs. Not away, but toward.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“When the light that kisses the back of her eyes were birthed, her ancestors were not yet born. How many human lives have ended in the time it took that light to reach her?

How many people have loved only to have lost? How countless, the hopes that have died?

But not this one.”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. —Orwell”
― Amie Kaufman, Illuminae

“It’s not the bullets that kill you. It’s moments like these. One piece at a time.”
― Jay Kristoff, Illuminae

“I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“You feel the pages thinning as you near the back cover. You love the book, so you want to keep reading, but you know that the more you read the closer you are to being finished, to not getting to read that book for the first time again.”
― Ian Harding, Odd Birds

“I think the secret to a happy life is to keep moving, to keep trying to do the things you love. And maybe—just maybe, if you’re really lucky—while you’re out there flying and flapping for years and years, you’ll see some pretty incredible things.”
― Ian Harding, Odd Birds

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

“Music and books stir up emotions. They make feelings rise and clatter and wreck, and sometimes that's dangerous. But music can make you rise up and clatter and destroy when you need to, too.”
― Deb Caletti, A Heart in a Body in the World

“The problem is, she's done things too often because she didn't what to disappoint people.”
― Deb Caletti, A Heart in a Body in the World

“White institutions are constantly communicating how much Blackness they want. It begins with numbers. How many scholarships are being offered? How many seats are being “saved” for “neighborhood kids”? How many Black bodies must be present for us to have “good” diversity numbers? How many people of color are needed for the website, the commercials, the pamphlets? But numbers are only the beginning. Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth. Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Rare is the ministry praying that they would be worthy of the giftedness of Black minds and hearts.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“My Christian faith tells me that good news is only good if it is for everyone, otherwise it's just ideology.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shameless: A Case for Not Feeling Bad About Feeling Good

“I hate that this is God’s economy. That the salvation of my enemy is tied up in my own. Which is why I sometimes say that the Gospel is like, the worst good news I’ve ever heard in my life.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shameless: A Case for Not Feeling Bad About Feeling Good