Barbara > Barbara's Quotes

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― Joan Powers, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”
― Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

“A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you."

The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?"

The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.”
― Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

“How wild it was, to let it be.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
― Hans Christian Anderson, The Complete Fairy Tales

“It is always brave to be kind.”
― R.J. Palacio, The Julian Chapter

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.”
― Seneca

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.”
― Nora Ephron

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”
― Thomas Merton

“I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The world was hers for the reading.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“As Thoreau wrote, ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“The only way to learn is to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance.”
― Christina Baker Kline, A Piece of the World

“What she wants most - what she truly yearns for - is what any of us want: to be seen.”
― Christina Baker Kline, A Piece of the World

“Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.”
― Henri-Frédéric Amiel