Mara Shaw > Mara's Quotes

“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
― Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers

“My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”
― John Burroughs

“Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”
― Aaron Copland

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
― Charles Dickens

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
― Linda Grayson

“Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering--a hell of boredom. ”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”
― Johann wolfgang von Goethe

“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
― Maya Angelou

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
― John Anster, The First Part Of Goethe's Faust

“The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one’s soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive – you are leaking.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Wake up now, look alive, for here is a day off work just to praise Creation: the turkey, the squash, and the corn, these things that ate and drank sunshine, grass, mud, and rain, and then in the shortening days laid down their lives for our welfare and onward resolve. There's the miracle for you, the absolute sacrifice that still holds back seed: a germ of promise to do the whole thing again, another time. . . Thanksgiving is Creation's birthday party. Praise harvest, a pause and sigh on the breath of immortality.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part