Rachael Knudsen > Rachael's Quotes

“You are not an ugly person all the time; you are not an ugly person ordinarily; you are not an ugly person day to day. From day to day, you are a nice person. From day to day, all the people who are supposed to love you on the whole do. From day to day, as you walk down a busy street in the large and modern and prosperous city in which you work and lie, dismayed and puzzled at how alone you can feel in this crowd, how awful it is to go unnoticed, how awful it is to go unloved, even as you are surrounded by more people than you could possibly get to know in a lifetime that lasted for millennia and then out of the corner of your eye you see someone looking at you and absolute pleasure is written all over the person's face, and then you realize that you are not as revolting a presence as you think you are. And so, ordinarily, you are a nice person, an attractive person, a person capable of drawing to yourself the affection of other people, a person at home in your own skin: a person at home in your own house, with its nice backyard, at home on your street, your church, in community activities, your job, at home with your family, your relatives, your friends - you are a whole person.”
― Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

“It is certainly not then—not in dreams—but when one is wide awake, in moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“Bidden or not, God is here.”
― Ami McKay

“We spend our lives hurrying away from the real, as though it were deadly to us. 'It must be up there somewhere on the horizon,' we think. And all the time it is in the soil, right beneath our feet.”
― William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

“Don't be concerned with what you can't do. Work on what you can do - then count your blessings.”
― Alan Robinson

“No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“[My grandmother] was so humble of heart and so gentle that her tenderness for others and her disregard for herself and her own troubles blended in a smile which, unlike those seen on the majority of human faces, bore no trace of irony save for herself, while for all of us kisses seemed to spring from her eyes, which could not look upon those she loved without seeming to bestow upon them passionate caresses.”
― Marcel Proust

“I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.”
― Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted

“Wherever you go, you can never leave yourself behind.”
― James Conroyd Martin

“She would say that what is past, one cannot change, so each backward glance is a bit of the present slipping away.”
― James Conroyd Martin

“A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
― Charles Dickens

“Sometimes you must put yourself in the way of destiny.”
― James Conroyd Martin

“A liar can go around the world, but can never come back.”
― James Conroyd Martin

“Through bravery you may win a war, and through bravery you may lose.
-Polish Proverb”
― James Conroyd Martin

“Happiness is not the belief that we don't need to change; it's the realization that we can.”
― Shawn Achor

“Happiness is something that comes from our own hearts, not from other people.”
― Lynn Austin, While We're Far Apart:

“Faith don't come in a bushel basket, Missy. It come one step at a time. Decide to trust Him for one little thing today, and before you know it, you find out He's so trustworthy you be putting your whole life in His hands.”
― Lynn Austin, Candle in the Darkness

“Just as hundreds of brushstrokes comprised a finished canvas, people were made up of a lifetime of experiences, both good and bad. And without knowing what someone had endured, it was impossible to truly know them - and accept them - for who they were.”
― Tamera Alexander, A Lasting Impression

“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

“Heart throbs- yes, heart throbs of happiness, heart throbs of courage, heart throbs that make us feel better. Those things that appeal to others; that note of inspiration laid aside--bring it forth and let us make a magazine that will speak the language of the heart as well as of the mind.”
― Ami Mckay

“What do you want? Love. Well, love gets what she wants one way or another.”
― Ami Mckay

“It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live us many more lives and as many kind of lives as we wish.”
― S.I. Hayakawa

“Read. Everything you can get your hands on. Read until words become your friends. Them when you need to find one, they will jump into your mind, waving their hands for you to pick them. And you can select whichever you like, just like a captain choosing a stickball team.”
― Karen Witemeyer

“For a century, environmentalism has divided itself into warring camps: conservationists versus preservationists.... The struggle pits those who would meddle with nature against those who would leave it be.... The only sensible way forward lies in a melding of the two philosophies. If nature has grown artificial, then restoring wilderness requires human intervention. We must manage nature in order to leave it alone.”
― David Baron

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
― Mark Twain

“Of all the agonies of life, that which is most poignant and harrowing- that which for the time annihilates all reason and leaves our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart-- is the conviction that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love.”
― William Henry Bulwer

“When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful.”
― Eric Thomas, The Secret to Success

“To live content with small means.

To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion.

To be worthy not respectable,
and wealthy not rich.

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes,
and sages with open heart, to bear all
cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions,
hurry never.

In a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.”
― William Henry Channing

“What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods.”
― Thomas Payne 1776

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.”
― B.B. King