Mike > Mike's Quotes

“Remember then: there is only one time that is important-- Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live by and Other Tales

“The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other,... but to be with each other.”
― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

“The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands

“The most amazing combinations can result if you shuffle the pack enough.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

“Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.”
― Kathleen Norris

“To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.”
― Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.”
― Kathleen Norris

“If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.”
― Kathleen Norris

“The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.”
― Philip K. Dick

“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”
― Philip K. Dick

“Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence—those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.”
― Aldous Huxley, Island