Marcia Conner > Marcia's Quotes

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
― Alan Greenspan

“This is the thing no one prepares you for where disaster are concerned. There is no ominous black cloud, no spooky chill, no neon sign that flashes: Stop! Please! Go back to bed! There's something really really dreadful waiting to happen around the corner! I beg of you, do not continue!”
― Sarah-Kate Lynch, On Top of Everything

“If there’s one thing I have learned it’s that if you carry on as though nothing strange is happening, it usually stops being strange”
― Sarah-Kate Lynch, On Top of Everything

“In my experience nobody gets to lead a totally charmed existence. Nobody escapes the pitfalls of being a human being. It’s what seperates us from the zebras. Or that’s my theory anyway”
― Sarah-Kate Lynch, On Top of Everything

“If we are all going to have tragedies, if none of us can escape them, then surely we have to learn from them, we have to gain something. And we have to use what we have gained. Those of us who have fought tooth and nail to overcome tragedy are, after all, nothing else, proof that such things can be survived. So we can actually help others survive their tragedies too. As long as they’ll let us.”
― Sarah-Kate Lynch, On Top of Everything

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.”
― Ariel Gore, Atlas of the Human Heart

“Your heart is the size of your fist; keep loving, keep fighting.”
― Ariel Gore, Atlas of the Human Heart

“With each beat, the heart pumps nearly three ounces of blood into the arteries--seventy-five to ninety gallons an hour when the body is at rest.”
― Ariel Gore, Atlas of the Human Heart

“Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.”
― C.S. Lewis

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Only connect!”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.”
― Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

“I want to keep a human mouth on my coffee table. It’ll be a great conversation starter.”
― Jarod Kintz, I Want

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

“A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.”
― Truman Capote

“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection

“Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.”
― Mark Twain

“Those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know.”
― Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

“The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you don’t know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired.”
― Michael Lewis, Moneyball

“The best thing about flying first class....was that you could be as nutty as a fruitcake and were still treated like the Queen of Sheba.”
― Sarah-Kate Lynch, Finding Tom Connor

“She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.”
― Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
― Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies

“I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.”
― Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion

“You survived as a child because others helped to maintain your life. It continues to be true today, even when you think you are abandoned, rejected, neglected, and unloved: the tomatoes you eat sustain you, the crossing guard stops the traffic so you can get to the other side of the street, the dinner offered to you on clean white plates nourishes you, the paper on which these words are printed informs you. Noticed or ignored, this web of others protects and holds you and makes it possible for you to make a difference: to take what came to you as seed and pass it on as blossom, and what came as blossom and ripen it to fruit.”
― Dawna Markova, Spot of Grace: Remarkable Stories of How You DO Make a Difference

“The moments you are given are your true wealth. You don't need power, influence, or fame. The sunlight brings the power; the wind carries the influence. And as for fame, well, when you allow yourself to notice all those hands that have made your growth possible, you will also recognize what you have made possible for countless others — and how famous you already are. In this very moment, one of those others may be telling a story about how you helped them grow forward.”
― Dawna Markova, Spot of Grace: Remarkable Stories of How You DO Make a Difference

“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”
― Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume