Janet > Janet's Quotes

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

“I am not a has-been. I am a will be.”
― Lauren Bacall

“I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”
― Martha Graham

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“...for we are all amateurs at life, but if we do not focus too much on our mistakes, a miraculous picture emerges. And we learn that it's not the beauty of the image that warrants our gratitude--it's the chance to paint.”
― Richard Paul Evans, Finding Noel

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
― Joseph Addison

“Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance.”
― Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Worry may not change the outcome, but it definately affects the outlook.”
― Tonya Hurley, Homecoming

“What a relationship looks like on the outside isn't the same as what it's like on the inside. You can be more in love with someone in your mind than with the person you see every day.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Nobody can change who you are, except for you.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
― John Muir

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
― Mortimer J. Adler

“Growing up means :propelling yourself forward into whatever lies ahead, one turn of the wheel at a time.”
― Sarah Dessen

“If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?”
― Maya Angelou

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.”
― Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself everyday.”
― Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“What's past is prologue.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
― Carl Gustav Jung