245
Quotes that enlighten, or at least amuse us!
📅 January 1, 2017
“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
― Maria Edgeworth
👓 About the quote:
Maria Edgeworth, born January 1, 1767, was a prolific and influential Anglo-Irish writer of adult and children’s books often considered the ‘Irish Jane Austen’ or ‘female Sir Walter Scott’. Her admirers, in fact, included both Austen and Scott, who acknowledged her influence in Waverly, as well as Ivan Turgenev and William Makepeace Thackeray. Edgeworth was an outspoken commentator on class, race, and gender whose novels reflected her beliefs in women’s education reform as well as her criticism of the treatment of Irish peasantry, who she worked hard to help.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 30, 2016
“Everything distracted me, but most of all myself.”
― Patti Smith
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Patti Smith! The American writer, performer, and visual artist, known as “punk’s poet laureate” for her revolutionary fusion of poetry and rock, turns 70 today. Smith’s work includes her hugely influential 1975 debut album Horses, poetry collections Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence, and her memoir Just Kids, which won the 2010 National Book Award.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 26, 2016
“As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.”
― David Sedaris
👓 About the quote:
Happy Birthday, David Sedaris! The American humorist, author, and radio contributor turns 60 today. Author of bestselling books including Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day and most recently Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, Sedaris also writes plays with his sister, actress Amy Sedaris, under the name “The Talent Family.”
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 22, 2016
“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
― Jean Racine
👓 About the quote:
French dramatist Jean Racine, who was baptized on December 22, 1639, presumably soon after his birth, was one of the major playwrights of 17th-century France, alongside Molière and Corneille. Author of what many consider the finest tragedies in French literature, he is best known for the plays Phèdre, Andromaque, Britannicus, and Athalie.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 11, 2016
“Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.”
― Grace Paley
👓 About the quote:
Grace Paley (born in the Bronx on December 11, 1922) was an American short story writer, poet, teacher, and political activist. Her Collected Stories was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Her other books included the short story collections The Little Disturbances of Man (1959), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), and Just As I Thought (1999).
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 7, 2016
“To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius. And easier. Because it's true. It's a new world every heart beat.”
― Joyce Cary
👓 About the quote:
Joyce Cary, born in Northern Ireland on December 7, 1888, was a prolific novelist whose diverse works drew on his experiences living in Ireland, in Nigeria while working for the British Colonial Service, and in England. His best-known books include Mister Johnson (1939), the story of a young Nigerian’s tragic dealings with the British Colonial regime, and The Horse’s Mouth (1944), about an anarchic painter, which was made into a film written by, and starring, Alec Guinness.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 2, 2016
“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.”
― Elizabeth Berg
👓 About the quote:
Before she became a bestselling writer, Elizabeth Berg (born December 2, 1948) was a registered nurse, a profession that taught her much about human nature and relationships. The Chicago-based novelist, who won the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, is the author of 26 books including Open House, Talk Before Sleep, What We Keep and The Year of Pleasures.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 30, 2016
“Always tell the truth. It's the easiest thing to remember.”
― David Mamet
👓 About the quote:
David Mamet (born November 30, 1947) captures colloquial, everyday dialogue—often of the profane variety—in his plays and screenplays. Credit that, perhaps, to his early days as a Chicago taxi driver and factory worker. Moving from drama to satire to comedy, he won a Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross and received Oscar nominations for screenplays for The Verdict and Wag the Dog.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 27, 2016
“Creativity could be described as letting go of certainties.”
― Gail Sheehy
👓 About the quote:
Gail Sheehy (born November 27, 1937) is the bestselling author of Passages, which lays out a road map for navigating adult life and has been published in more than two dozen languages. Her memoir, Daring: My Passages, looks back on her 50-year career as a writer and her trailblazing work as a female journalist.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 22, 2016
“I'm uninterested in superheroes. I am only interested in real stories, real people, real connection.”
― Jamie Lee Curtis
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Jamie Lee Curtis. We know the actress (born November 22, 1958) for her memorable film roles and as the daughter of screen stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. Happily her résumé and pedigree have not clouded her generous spirit: She’s a bestselling children’s book author, with her work focusing on self-esteem, family bonds, and other positive themes.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 19, 2016
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
― Peter F. Drucker
👓 About the quote:
Peter F. Drucker (born November 19, 1909) was a management consultant, educator, and author, whose prolific outpouring of books for more than half a century served as guideposts for the business world. His best-known works include The Effective Executive, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Practice of Management, and Concept of the Corporation. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 17, 2016
“Until we invent telepathy, books are our best choice for understanding the rest of humanity.”
― Christopher Paolini
👓 About the quote:
Christopher Paolini (born November 17, 1983) is the author of the bestselling Inheritance Cycle series for young adults, which includes the titles Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance. He wrote the first book as a teenager, never planning for it to be published, and immersed himself in activities to plot out his characters’ actions: hiking, camping, forging knives and swords, tracking game, and more.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 15, 2016
“It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Georgia O’Keeffe. The celebrated modernist painter (born November 15, 1887) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago; taught art in Texas and South Carolina; lived with her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, in New York; spent time in Bermuda and Hawaii; and finally settled in New Mexico. Her autobiography, Georgia O’Keeffe, and published letters reveal the story of her extraordinary life.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 13, 2016
“I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.”
― Whoopi Goldberg
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Whoopi Goldberg! The Oscar-winning actress/comedian (born November 13, 1955) laces her writing with the same witty humor and buoyant spirit that resonate through her TV, film, and theater work. She writes honestly about life (Is It Just Me?: Or Is It Nuts Out There?) and navigating relationships (If Someone Says “You Complete Me,” Run!), and she’s done a children’s book series called Sugar Plum Ballerinas.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
“The nicest veterans...the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
#war
📅 December 31, 2016
“And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.”
― Junot Díaz
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Junot Díaz! The Dominican Republic-born, New Jersey-raised writer turns 48 today. Diaz is the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and several short story collections including Drown and This is How You Lose Her, a National Book Award Finalist. The recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship as well as other awards, Diaz is also a creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 28, 2016
“The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”
― Carol Ryrie Brink
👓 About the quote:
Carol Ryrie Brink (December 28, 1895 – August 15, 1981) was an American author who wrote more than 30 books for both children and adults. Her novel Caddie Woodlawn, whose title character was modeled on the maternal grandmother who raised Brink after she was orphaned, won the 1936 Newbery Medal.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 23, 2016
“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.”
― Patrick Ness
👓 About the quote:
The film adaptation of Patrick Ness’s 2011 children’s fantasy novel A Monster Calls opens in the US today, December 23, 2016. The story follows Conor, a young boy whose mother is dying of cancer, and the monster –a giant, anthropomorphic yew tree - who starts to visit Conor at night, telling him stories and gradually guiding him towards an acceptance of the truth.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 12, 2016
“Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive.”
― John Osborne
👓 About the quote:
Considered the archetypal ‘Angry Young Man’ of 1950s British theater, playwright John Osborne (born December 12, 1929) is best known for Look Back in Anger, his groundbreaking play that transformed English theater with its gritty realism and excoriation of postwar life.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 8, 2016
“Do not complain beneath the stars about the lack of bright spots in your life.”
― Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
👓 About the quote:
In 1903, Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (born December 08, 1832) became the third recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was awarded the prize "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit."
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 4, 2016
“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income”
― Samuel Butler
👓 About the quote:
Samuel Butler, the English author born December 4, 1835, is best known for Erewhon (1872), his satire about Victorian society set in an imaginary, faux Utopia, and The Way of All Flesh (1903), considered his masterpiece, a semi-autobiographical novel published after his death.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 December 1, 2016
“Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.”
― Candace Bushnell
👓 About the quote:
Happy birthday, Candace Bushnell! The American novelist and television producer is best known for Sex and the City, a 1996 collection of essays based on her New York Observer column about single life in Manhattan. The book inspired the long-running HBO television series of the same name starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Bushnell is also author of The Carrie Diaries, Lipstick Jungle, One Fifth Avenue, and Four Blondes.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 29, 2016
“Human minds are more full of mysteries than any written book and more changeable than the cloud shapes in the air.”
― Louisa May Alcott
👓 About the quote:
Louisa May Alcott (born November 29, 1832) is best known for her children’s classic, Little Women, which is based on her own childhood. Other domestic narratives followed, including An Old-Fashioned Girl, Little Men, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, and Jo’s Boys. They're a departure from her early work, when she wrote potboilers with violent themes under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 23, 2016
“Poetry is a sort of homecoming.”
― Paul Celan
👓 About the quote:
Paul Celan (born November 23, 1920) was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel, who produced poetry that was marked by French Surrealist influences as well as by his experiences during the Holocaust. His collections of poetry include The Sand from the Urns and Poppy and Memory. He also translated French, Italian, and Russian poetry—even Shakespeare’s writing—into German.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 21, 2016
“The single most important key to success is to be a good listener.”
― Kelly Wearstler
👓 About the quote:
Kelly Wearstler (born November 21, 1967) has built a thriving interior design firm, with clients including Hollywood celebrities and boutique hotels. She’s also launched a home decor line (tableware, mirrors, even pet accessories) and written four coffee table books that reflect her classic and contemporary aesthetic: Rhapsody, Hue, Domicilium Decoratus, and Modern Glamour: The Art of Unexpected Style.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 18, 2016
“This object that we hold in our hands, a book…that tactile pleasure, it's just not going to go away.”
― Maggie Stiefvater
👓 About the quote:
Maggie Stiefvater (born November 18, 1981) worked as a wedding musician, a portrait artist, and a waitress—but it’s her bestselling fantasy novels that have catapulted her into the spotlight. Among the most popular are Shiver, Linger, The Raven Boys, The Raven King, and The Scorpio Races. And yet that hasn't stopped her: She still makes music (with harp and bagpipes) and art (with Prismacolor pencils).
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 16, 2016
“My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.”
― Tahir Shah
👓 About the quote:
Tahir Shah (born November 16, 1966) is the author of more than a dozen books that transport readers to exotic locales like Casablanca (The Caliph’s House, In Arabian Nights) and the Amazon (Trail of Feathers). He's also made documentary films, including Search for the Lost Treasure of Afghanistan and Journey to Mecca.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 14, 2016
“Why be so bloody miserable when you can pick up a good book or watch a great television drama?”
― Michael Dobbs
👓 About the quote:
Michael Dobbs (born November 14, 1948) not only wrote the political thriller House of Cards, which has been adapted into an award-winning Netflix series, but he has long been involved in British politics. He was an adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and he became a member of the House of Lords in 2010.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
📅 November 11, 2016
“The nicest veterans...the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
👓 About the quote:
It’s Veterans Day and Kurt Vonnegut's birthday. The bestselling author of Slaughterhouse-Five (born November 11, 1922) drew on his experiences during World War II to craft his satirical antiwar novel. He had been captured by the Germans and survived the firebombing of Dresden—an event that appears in the book. Among his other popular works are Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
👍 Like this quote on Goodreads
📖 Join the channel
“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice... it is conformity.”
― Earl Nightingale, How to Completely Change Your Life in 30 Seconds
#courage