Allison > Allison's Quotes

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“Did you ever want to be a writer?” “No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Half the things in this life I wish I could remember and the other half I wish I could forget.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and she takes him back.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
― Philo

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.”
― Brené Brown

“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

“Everyone wants to know why customer service has gone to hell in a handbasket. I want to know why customer behavior has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Boundaries—You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s okay and not okay, you ask. You’re willing to say no. Reliability—You do what you say you’ll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don’t overpromise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities. Accountability—You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends. Vault—You don’t share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my confidences are kept, and that you’re not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential. Integrity—You choose courage over comfort. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them. Nonjudgment—I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment. Generosity—You extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others. Self-trust is often a casualty”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“True belonging is not passive. It's not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. It's not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it's safer. It's a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.”
― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

“I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
― Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Healthy striving is self-focused: "How can I improve?" Perfectionism is other-focused: "What will they think?”
― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection