Laura > Laura's Quotes

“My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.

I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”
― Tom Waits

“Unfortunately, this isn’t true. There’s actually no such thing as multitasking (that is, simultaneously processing two or more attention-demanding tasks), because our brains can’t do two cognitively demanding things at once.* When we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually doing what researchers call “task-switching.” Like cars making sharp turns, our brains need to slow down and switch gears every time we stop thinking about one thing and engage with another—a process that has been estimated to take twenty-five minutes every time you do it.”
― Catherine Price, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan

“I went on endless moms’ nights out, where I put on tight jeans and trendy blouses and high heels like it mattered and went to the restaurant that was right next to the restaurant we went to with our families. (There were no dads’ nights out for my husband, because the supposition was that the men got to live life all the time, whereas we were caged animals who were sometimes allowed to prowl our local town bar and drink the blood of the free people.)”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“Personally, I’ve noticed that while it can initially be pleasant, I hardly ever feel better after I use my phone—an observation that has helped me catch myself when I’m about to pick it up out of habit.”
― Catherine Price, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan

“When you’re out to dinner with friends and everyone else is on their phones, try taking a photo of them on their devices and then texting it to them with a note saying, ‘I miss you!’” —”
― Catherine Price, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan

“You were only at risk for not remembering that this was as good as it would get, in every single moment—that you are right now as young as you’ll ever be again.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. (p.9)”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“We deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise.”
― Elliot Page

“We may have the illusion that we are doing more and that our human capacity has expanded when we shift our attention, or multitask, but actually we are doing less. Multitasking has repeatedly been shown to be associated with lower performance when objectively measured.”
― Gloria Mark, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

“You fall in love at twenty,” Gianni said. “After that, only waitresses fall in love.”
― Laurence Leamer, Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era

“Charlotte Caffey played lead guitar like it was a totally normal thing for a girl to do, which made it a totally normal thing for a girl to do. It didn’t seem shocking or revolutionary to me—they were just a fucking great band.”
― Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk

“I opened my mouth and said, “Because no one has listened to me my whole life and I really want to be heard.”
― Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk

“If you’re someone who hasn’t been heard your whole life, it makes sense that when you’re newly radicalized you could be overzealous and tear people down needlessly. It also makes sense that if you don’t process your own traumas, you may dump them onto others.”
― Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk

“I wasn’t going to let him step on the gas pedal of my empathy till he drove me off a cliff.”
― Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk

“A leader’s responsibility is to identify the strengths of the people on their team, no matter how buried those strengths might be.”
― Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect

“Was there a difference between getting old and looking unhappy? That is, if you already were unhappy, would the age show up as anything different? Or was it that the older you got, the harder it was to keep unhappiness off your face?”
― Anthony Veasna So, Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE When you are feeling depreciated, angry or drained, it is a sign that other people are not open to your energy. SANAYA ROMAN”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“Boys have the sensitivity routinely mocked and shamed and beaten out of them”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again