35 Words of Wisdom

As I planned my Birthday Week of Awesome, I wanted to share some of the hard-earned wisdom of my advancing age. However, it’s hard to come up with, say, 35 Things I Know For Sure (when I believe that part of wisdom is realizing that we always have more to learn). So instead, I’m leaving it to the experts. Here are 35 of my favorite guidepost quotes – sentiments that I find myself quoting, reminding myself of, or seeing the truth of again and again. Some have been with me for a long time, and some are more recent acquisitions.

1. In all things, it is better to hope than to despair. – Goethe

2. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. – Philo

3. Keep your heels, head, and standards high. – unknown

4. It’s all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I’d never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little; that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die. – Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet

5. Though I may be going down, I’ll take in flames over burning out. – Sara Bareilles

6. So What? Who Cares? – Fred Armisen as Joy Behar

7. Love is keeping the promise anyway. – John Green

8. We all must make the choice between what is right and what is easy. – Albus Dumbledore

9. I’m not Josie Grossie anymore! – Drew Barrymore, Never Been Kissed

10. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. – Anne Lamott

11. Before you swim, you’ve got to be okay to sink. – Incubus

12. We accept the love we think we deserve. – Stephen Chbosky

13. Don’t tell me what I can’t do! – John Locke, LOST

14. Everyone has a pain thermometer that goes from zero to ten. No one will make a change until they reach ten. Nine won’t do it. At nine you are still afraid. Only ten will move you, and when you’re there, you’ll know. No one can make that decision for you. – Vicki Myron

15. Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. – Matt Damon, We Bought A Zoo

16. Trust your story, not your chapter. – Paige Rowland

17. It’s a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart. – George Clooney, O Brother Where Art Thou?

18. [F]or a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. – I Peter 1:6-7

19. I can’t react and create at the same time. Neither can you. – Jeff Goins

20. I was once afraid of people saying, “Who does she think she is?” Now I have the courage to stand and say, “This is who I am.” – Oprah Winfrey

21. It’s often the last key that opens the lock. – Israa Ali

22. Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more. – Erica Jong

23. Lord, bring new life where we are worn and tired; new love where we have turned hard-hearted; forgiveness where we feel hurt and where we have wounded; and the joy and freedom of your Holy Spirit where we are prisoners of ourselves. – Scottish liturgy

24. Being understood is not the most essential thing in life. – Jodie Foster

25. Love wins. – J.K. Rowling

26. The easiest thing in the world is to be you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. – Leo Buscaglia

27. If you don’t like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won’t mind. – Irving Becker

28. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares. – Saul Bass

29. Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. – Galatians 6:9

30. You don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of. – Patti LaBelle

31. What would you do if you were absolutely confident God was with you? – Pete Wilson

32. Small moves, Ellie, small moves. – Contact

33. There are far better things ahead than anything we leave behind. – C.S. Lewis

34. It’s a moo point. It’s like a cow’s opinion; it doesn’t matter. It’s moo. – Joey Tribbiani

35. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. – Philippians 1:6 (my “life verse,” chosen when I was eighteen)