Mike Polen > Mike's Quotes

“The day misspent,
the love misplaced,
has inside it
the seed of redemption.
Nothing is exempt
from resurrection.”
― Kay Ryan, Say Uncle

“It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.”
― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
― Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

“Everybody talks about wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that's a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect.”
― Rob Reiner

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
― Louis L'Amour

“Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.”
― Ovid

“A roll of the dice will never abolish chance.”
― Stéphane Mallarmé

“I live for coincidences. They briefly give to me the illusion or the hope that there's a pattern to my life, and if there's a pattern, then maybe I'm moving toward some kind of destiny where it's all explained.”
― Jonathan Ames, My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays

“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
― Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong

“The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.”
― Henry Murger

“Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space...”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Laughter is wine for the soul - laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness - the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.”
― Sean O'Casey

“The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
― William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
― Mother Teresa

“There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.”
― Joseph Pulitzer

“If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.”
― Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney

“If you work really hard, and you're kind, amazing things will happen.”
― Conan O'Brien

“There is nobility in the struggle, you don't have to win.”
― Sharon Pollock

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson

“The heart is the toughest part of the body.
Tenderness is in the hands.”
― Carolyn Forché, The Country Between Us: The Achingly Sensual Political Poetry from a Journalist in El Salvador

“One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself.”
― Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh and Other Stories

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
― Benjamin Spock

“Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything.”
― Nellie Bly

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
― Studs Terkel

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
― Sigmund Freud