Denise

“Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in straitjackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and weazening all vision and bravery.

...I hate it because of all the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages, that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egotists that survive.”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

“Charm is the ability to make someone else think that both of you are pretty wonderful.”
― Kathleen Winsor

“Everyone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things.”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

“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