Erma Bombeck

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER:

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the "good" living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather rambling about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculped like a rose before it melted 
in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more 
while watching life.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment, realising that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's" and more "I'm sorry's"

. . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute . . . 
look at it and really see it . . . and never give it back.

Colleen Hoover

Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.

Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it.

The sky is always beautiful. Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy, it's still beautiful to look at....it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful.

Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for.

If I were a carpenter, I would build you a window to my soul. But I would leave that window shut and locked, so that every time you tried to look through it all you would see is your own reflection. You would see that my soul is a reflection of you

Imperfections define perfection.

Life wants you to fight it
Learn how to make it your own. 
it wants you to grab and axe and hack through the wood. 
It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through concrete. 
It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it. 

Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together, stir it up, blend it.

My lack of access to the real world has been replaced completely by books, and it can’t be healthy to live in a land of happily ever afters.

If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die

Not everyone gets a happily every after. Life is real and sometimes it's ugly and you just have to learn how to cope.

Mary Oliver

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.

Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 
When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument. 
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Miguel Ruiz

The Four Agreements
1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally... Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.

If you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self pity, suffering and tears.

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama

You don't need to change the world; you need to change yourself.

What you will see is love coming out of the trees, love coming out of the sky, love coming out of the light. You will perceive love from everything around you. This is the state of bliss.

Susan Polis Schutz

“Love is . . . Being happy for the other person when they are happy, Being sad for the person when they are sad, Being together in good times, And being together in bad times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.

Love is . . . Being honest with yourself at all times, Being honest with the other person at all times, Telling, listening, respecting the truth, And never pretending.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF REALITY.

Love is . . . An understanding so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person, Accepting the other person just the way they are, And not trying to change them to be something else.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF UNITY.

Love is . . . The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person, The growth of one individual alongside of and together with the growth of another individual. 
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SUCCESS.

Love is . . . The excitement of planning things together, The excitement of doing things together.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF THE FUTURE.
Love is . . . The fury of the storm, The calm in the rainbow.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF PASSION.

Love is . . . Giving and taking in a daily situation, Being patient with each other's needs and desires.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SHARING.

Love is . . . Knowing that the other person will always be with you regardless of what happens, Missing the other person when they are away but remaining near in heart at all times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SECURITY.
LOVE IS . . . THE SOURCE OF LIFE!” 

Thomas Merton

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.

If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.

The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.

I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me.

Chuck Klosterman

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

Life is rarely about what happened; it's mostly about what we think happened.

People who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they’d never admit in normal conversation.

There are two ways to look at life. The first view is that nothing stays the same and that nothing is inherently connected, and that the only driving force in anyone's life is entropy. The second is that everything pretty much stays the same (more or less) and that everything is completely connected, even if we don't realize it.

Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless.

Every time I learn the truth about something, I’m disappointed.

We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”

William Shakespeare

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, 
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing

Randy Pausch 

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.

The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have

Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

It's not how hard you hit. It's how hard you get hit...and keep moving forward.

Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.”

People are more important than things.

Go out and do for others what somebody did for you.

We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived.

Cecelia Ahern

Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars.

Finding someone you love and who loves you back is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But finding a true soul mate is an even better feeling. A soul mate is someone who understands you like no other, loves you like no other, will be there for you forever, no matter what. They say that nothing lasts forever, but I am a firm believer in the fact that for some, love lives on even after we're gone.

Memories were fine but you couldn't touch them, smell them or hold them. They were never exactly as the moment was, and they faded with time.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how much, how often, or how closely you keep an eye on things because you can't control it. Sometimes things and people just go. Just like that.

There's no limit to what you can dream. You expect the unexpected, you believe in magic, in fairy tales, and in possibilities. Then you grow older and that innocence is shattered and somewhere along the way the reality of life gets in the way and you're hit by the realization that you can't be all you wanted to be, you just might have to settle for a little bit less.

I’ve learned that home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.

Your heart can break at any age.