Shaun N. Lawrence

“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

“What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of the everyday. The comfort he got from the hard, cold truth—the filth, the war, the poverty—was that life could be capable of small beauties.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

“It doesn't have to be pretty or smart, just honest and true. For many a dance starts with a trip, and many a song finds its opening through a cough.”
― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

“Job, chapter fourteen, verse seven,” Aunt Al said. “ ‘For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease.’ ”
― Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star