CJ > CJ's Quotes

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
― Sam Levenson, In One Era & Out the Other

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.”
― Sam Levenson, In One Era & Out the Other

“Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”
― Sam Levenson

“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“The morning is the best time, there are no people around. My pleasant disposition likes the world with nobody in it.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.”
― Diana Vreeland

“The first rule that a geisha is taught, at the age of nine, is to be charming to other women...Every girl in the world should have geisha training.”
― Diana Vreeland

“It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“It’s not about the dress you wear, but it’s about the life you lead in the dress.”
― Diana Vreeland

“I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.”
― Diana Vreeland

“I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.”
― Georgia O'Keefe

“Too much good taste can be boring”
― Diana Vreeland

“You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.”
― Diana Vreeland

“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ”
― Roseanne Barr

“I realised that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught —not like what I had seen —shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn’t occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own. This was one of the best times in my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing — no one interested — no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working on my own, unknown — no one to satisfy but myself.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe, Words Works: Volume 1

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.”
― Georgia O'Keefe

“I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”
― Georgia O'Keefe

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”
― Georgia O'Keefe

“As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire

“What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now.
You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.”
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.”
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism

“When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me-some of them more than sixty years ago-I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives. If the person in the photographs were living in this world today, she would be quite a different person-but it doesn't matter-Stieglitz photographed her then.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say ‘Wow, isn’t he so terribly brave to love a girl who is so obviously sad?’ You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole.”
― Warsan Shire

“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”
― Warsan Shire

“you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire

“two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.”
― Warsan Shire

“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
― Warsan Shire

“At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.”
― Warsan Shire