Debra > Debra's Quotes

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
― T.S. Eliot

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“God, please help me not be an asshole, is about as common a prayer as I pray in my life.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”
― Anthony Bourdain

“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Maybe the only thing that matters is to make our lives last as long as we do. You know, to make a life last until it ends, to make all the parts come out even, like when you rub the last piece of bread in the last drop of oil on your plate and eat it with the last sip of wine in your glass.”
― Marlena De Blasi, A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure

“What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

“You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.”
― Annie Proulx

“I would rather be dead than not read”
― Annie Proulx

“Anyone who thinks they're too grown up or too sophisticated to eat caramel corn, is not invited to my house for dinner”
― Ruth Reichl

“There is fundamental importance in living well even in hard times. By “living well,” I mean finding a way to live that rings true to you and your values and that brings pleasure to your life.”
― Robin Mather, The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally

“I said yes to adventure, and then almost immediately I started trying to figure out how to get out of it.”
― Dave Holmes

“It's important not to insist that people try things against their will. The palate is for pleasure, not for obligations.”
― F. G. Haghenbeck

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
― Frida Kahlo

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”
― Julia Child

“If you're afraid of butter, use cream.”
― Julia Child

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

“Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.”
― Maya Angelou

“My generation is now the door to memory. That is why I am remembering.”
― Joy Harjo, September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond

“I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.”
― Joy Harjo, Secrets from the Center of the World (Volume 17)

“If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.”
― David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

“All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.”
― David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice

“As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.”
― David Sedaris, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.

“Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.”
― Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes

“After a full belly all is poetry.”
― Frank McCourt

“We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work.”
― John Dos Passos

“I never see the dawn that I don't say to myself perhaps.”
― John Dos Passos