Kelly > Kelly's Quotes

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”
― David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“You know what truly aches? Having so much inside you and not having the slightest clue of how to pour it out.”
― Karen Quan, Write like no one is reading

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.”
― Princess Diana

“Don't wish...DO! Don't try...BE! Don't think...KNOW! And above all: Bless a stranger with a small, yet powerful, random act of kindness. You feel me?”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“Within sixty-minute limits or one-hundred-yard limits or the limits of a game board, we can look for perfect moments or perfect structures. In my fiction I think this search sometimes turns out to be a cruel delusion.

No optimism, no pessimism. No homesickness for lost values or for the way fiction used to be written.

Everybody seems to know everything. Subjects surface and are totally exhausted in a matter of days or weeks, totally played out by the publishing industry and the broadcast industry. Nothing is too arcane to escape the treatment, the process. Making things difficult for the reader is less an attack on the reader than it is on the age and its facile knowledge-market.

The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence. The writer is the man or woman who automatically takes a stance against his or her government. There are so many temptations for American writers to become part of the system and part of the structure that now, more than ever, we have to resist. American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous. Writers in repressive societies are considered dangerous. That’s why so many of them are in jail.

Some people prefer to believe in conspiracy because they are made anxious by random acts. Believing in conspiracy is almost comforting because, in a sense, a conspiracy is a story we tell each other to ward off the dread of chaotic and random acts. Conspiracy offers coherence.

I see contemporary violence as a kind of sardonic response to the promise of consumer fulfillment in America... I see this desperation against the backdrop of brightly colored packages and products and consumer happiness and every promise that American life makes day by day and minute by minute everywhere we go.

Discarded pages mark the physical dimensions of a writer’s labor.

Film allows us to examine ourselves in ways earlier societies could not—examine ourselves, imitate ourselves, extend ourselves, reshape our reality. It permeates our lives, this double vision, and also detaches us, turns some of us into actors doing walk-throughs.

Every new novel stretches the term of the contract—let me live long enough to do one more book.

You become a serious novelist by living long enough.”
― Don DeLillo

“Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of kindness - both the ones you have received and the ones you have given - you can no longer believe that what you do does not matter.”
― Dawna Markova

“There is a club in this world that you do not join knowingly.

One day you are just a member.

It is “The life changing events club.”

The fee to join the club is hurt beyond belief, payable in full, up front for a lifetime membership.

The benefit of the club is a new found perspective on life, and a deep understanding that you may not be happy about your current situation, but you can be happy in your current situation.

The only rule to the club is that you cannot tell anyone that you are a member.

The club does not provide a directory of its members, but when you look into a member’s eye, you can tell that they too are part of the club. Members are allowed to exchange that brief eye contact that says: “I didn’t know.”

Being a member of this club is the last thing that anyone initially wants in their life.

Being a member of this club is the best thing that ever happens to a person in their life, and there is not a person in the club that would ever give up their membership.

If you really look and know what you are looking for you can spot the clubs members; they are the ones that provide a random act of kindness and do something for someone who can never repay them for what they have done. They are the people spreading joy and optimism and lifting people’s spirits even when their own heart has been broken.

I have paid my dues; my lifetime membership arrived today, not by mail, but by a deep inner feeling that I cannot describe.

It is the best club that I never wanted to be part of.

But I am glad that I am a member.”
― John Passaro, 6 Minutes Wrestling With Life

“Kindness is not random, it is done on purpose”
― Sonya Withrow

“When people live lives of spiritual awareness and mindfulness, everything they do and say can change the lives of others. Those random acts of kindness can alter someone’s attitude.”
― James Van Praagh, Adventures of the Soul: Journeys Through the Physical and Spiritual Dimensions

“I don't know why people keep trying to help me like this. They should be heading for the hills. Ali says I inspire loyalty but I seem to be taking kindness that I can never hope to repay. I am not a perfect human being. I'm a cynic and a pessimist and sometimes I feel as though I'm locked into this life by an accident of birth. But at times like this, a random act of kindness or the touch of another human being makes me believe I can be different, better, redeemed.”
― Michael Robotham, Lost

“The greatest work you will ever do is charity; the most divine work you will ever do will be changing people’s perception of God, while you’re doing charity.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Does helping others really confer happiness or prosperity on the helper? I know of no evidence showing that altruists gain money from their altruism, but the evidence suggests that they often gain happiness. People who do volunteer work are happier and healthier than those who don’t; but, as always, we have to contend with the problem of reverse correlation: Congenitally happy people are just plain nicer to begin with,24 so their volunteer work may be a consequence of their happiness, not a cause. The happiness-as-cause hypothesis received direct support when the psychologist Alice Isen25 went around Philadelphia leaving dimes in pay phones. The people who used those phones and found the dimes were then more likely to help a person who dropped a stack of papers (carefully timed to coincide with the phone caller’s exit), compared with people who used phones that had empty coin-return slots. Isen has done more random acts of kindness than any other psychologist: She has distributed cookies, bags of candy, and packs of stationery; she has manipulated the outcome of video games (to let people win); and she has shown people happy pictures, always with the same finding: Happy people are kinder and more helpful than those in the control group.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

“We rush, rush, rush to get things done, and in the process, our lives rush past us.
Life isn't supposed to rush past you like that. You're supposed to live it. Moment by moment. Mile by mile. Day by day.”
― Lisa Verge Higgins, Random Acts of Kindness

“Each morning, write down three things you’re grateful for. Not the same three every day; find three new things to write about. That trains your brain to search your circumstances and hunt for the positive. Journal for two minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past twenty-four hours. Write down every detail you can remember; this causes your brain to literally reexperience the experience, which doubles its positive impact. Meditate daily. Nothing fancy; just stop all activity, relax, and watch your breath go in and out for two minutes. This trains your brain to focus where you want it to, and not get distracted by negativity in your environment. Do a random act of kindness over the course of each day. To make this simple, Shawn often recommends a specific act of kindness: at the start of each day, take two minutes to write an email to someone you know praising them or thanking them for something they did. Exercise for fifteen minutes daily. Simple cardio, even a brisk walk, has a powerful antidepressant impact, in many cases stronger (and more long-lasting) than an actual antidepressant!”
― Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness

“Be the most polite person that you know. • Be honest to a fault. • Deeply commit yourself to being a world-class listener. • Send handwritten thank you notes on a regular basis. • Seek out opportunities to do random acts of kindness.”
― Robin S. Sharma, The Mastery Manual

“For real men serve their country with random acts of kindness, not vicious acts of violence. And real soldiers have one duty, and one duty only; they have a duty to mutiny!”
― Joss Sheldon, 'Involution & Evolution': A rhyming anti-war novel

“Random acts of kindness such as a smile to a stranger carry more weight than attending church every Sunday out of obligation. You can literally change the energy field around you by keeping your thoughts high-minded, and only attract those who gravitate toward the higher vibration. Remember that like attracts like, so when you bring that energy into your life, only good things can happen—and what you reap may arise from something you had no conscious awareness of sowing.”
― James Van Praagh, Adventures of the Soul: Journeys Through the Physical and Spiritual Dimensions

“Random acts of kindness are essential to our wellbeing, as they liberate us from self-obsession, selfishness, and isolation; they are the result of an open and loving nature. True generosity is giving without expectation, with no need to be repaid in any form.”
― Ed & Deb Shapiro

“He pulls back to look down at me and when he sees my tears, he brings his hands up to my cheeks. “In the future... if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again... fall in love with me.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Just because someone hurts you doesn't mean you can simply stop loving them. It's not a person's actions that hurt the most. It's the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Life is a funny thing. We only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn't waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“I feel like everyone fakes who they really are, when deep down we're all equal amounts of screwed up. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“No one is exclusively bad, nor is anyone exclusively good. Some are just forced to work harder at suppressing the bad.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“In the future... if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again... fall in love with me.” He presses his lips against my forehead. “You’re still my favorite person, Lily. Always will be.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.

My mother went through it.

I went through it.

I'll be damned if I allow my daughter to go through it.

I kiss her on the forehead and make her a promise. "It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“I hope you defy the odds of most dreams and actually accomplish yours.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“I think that’s one of the biggest signs a person has matured—knowing how to appreciate things that matter to others, even if they don’t matter very much to you.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“You’re only human. And as humans, we can’t expect to shoulder all of our pain. Sometimes we have to share it with the people who love us so we don’t come crashing down from the weight of it all”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us