Studs Terkel

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.

I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him.

People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another. 

Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.

You know, 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?' It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.

Curiosity never killed this cat’ — that’s what I’d like as my epitaph.

Ernest Cline

People who live in glass houses should shut the fuck up.

Going outside is highly overrated.

No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.

You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever.

Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star. One of over a hundred billion in our galaxy. A galaxy that was just one of billions of other galaxies in the observable universe. This helped me keep things in perspective.

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

One person can keep a secret, but not two.

You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out.

Gary Zukav

Nonsense is that which does not fit into the prearranged patterns which we have superimposed on reality...Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense.

Eventually, you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You receive from the world what you give to the world.

Reality is what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is what we believe.
What we believe is based upon our perceptions.
What we perceive depends upon what we look for.
What we look for depends upon what we think.
What we think depends upon what we perceive.
What we perceive determines what we believe.
What we believe determines what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is our reality

Humbleness, forgiveness, clarity and love are the dynamics of freedom. They are the foundations of authentic power.

If you want to have the kind of relationship that your heart yearns for, you have to create it. You can't depend on somebody else creating it for you.

Ogden Nash II

Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark, it's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, 
And that's what parents were created for.

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” 

Some pains are physical, and some pains are mental, but the one that's both is dental.

I have an idea that the phrase “weaker sex” was coined by some woman to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm. 

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naive.

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

Sherry Argov

Bitch (noun): A woman who won't bang her head against the wall obsessing over someone else's opinion - be it a man or anyone else in her life. She understands that if someone does not approve of her, it's just one person's opinion; therefore, it's of no real importance. She doesn't try to live up to anyone else's standards - only her own. Because of this, she relates to a man very differently.

Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.

Whenever you are too worried about someone else's approval, that person loses respect for you.

That's the big picture, your happiness. And health. You should never care what a man thinks of you -- until he demonstrates to you that he cares about making you happy. If he isn't trying to make you happy, then send him back from "whence" he came because winning him over will have no benefit. At the end of the day, happines, joy...and yes...your emotional stability...those comprise the only measuring stick you really need to have.

Live by your own rules Move to your rhythm, instead of dancing to the beat of someone else’s drum Decide how you want to be treated Choose what you will or will not tolerate Leave if you don’t get what you want.

When you meet someone who is truly great, he makes you believe you can be great, too. This is the kind of relationship you want, and it's the only kind of relationship worth having.

It is better to be disliked for being who you are than to be loved for who you are not.

Alain de Botton

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand wh

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

Jasmine Warga

Maybe we all have darkness inside of us and some of us are better at dealing with it than others.

You're like a grey sky. You're beautiful, even though you don't want to be.

I will be stronger than my sadness.

Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there's nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.

Depression is like a heaviness that you can’t ever escape. It crushes down on you, making even the smallest things like tying your shoes or chewing on toast seem like a twenty-mile hike uphill. Depression is a part of you; it’s in your bones and your blood.

Sometimes I wonder if my heart is like a black hole--it's so dense that there's no room for light, but that doesn't mean it can't still suck me in.

I once read in my physics book that the universe begs to be observed, that energy travels and transfers when people pay attention. Maybe that's what love really boils down to--having someone who cares enough to pay attention so that you're encouraged to travel and transfer, to make your potential energy spark into kinetic energy.

It’s funny how once you like someone, even the unattractive things they do somehow become endearing.

Greg Behrendt

If he’s not calling you, it’s because you are not on his mind. If he creates expectations for you, and then doesn’t follow through on little things, he will do same for big things. Be aware of this and realize that he’s okay with disappointing you. Don’t be with someone who doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do. If he’s choosing not to make a simple effort that would put you at ease and bring harmony to a recurring fight, then he doesn’t respect your feelings and needs. “Busy” is another word for “asshole.” “Asshole” is another word for the guy you’re dating. You deserve a fucking phone call.

I'm about to make a wild, extreme and severe relationship rule: the word busy is a load of crap and is most often used by assholes. The word "busy" is the relationship Weapon of Mass Destruction. It seems like a good excuse, but in fact in every silo you uncover, all you're going to find is a man who didn't care enough to call. Remember men are never to busy to get what they want.”

Let’s start with this statistic: You are delicious. Be brave, my sweet. I know you can get lonely. I know you can crave companionship and sex and love so badly that it physically hurts. But I truly believe that the only way you can find out that there’s something better out there is to first believe there’s something better out there. What other choice is there?

James Dashner

If you ain’t scared… you ain’t human.

You are the shuckiest shuck faced shuck in the world!

ill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me.

Shouldn't someone give a pep talk or something?" Minho asked, pulling Thomas's attention away from Alby.
"Go ahead," Newt replied.
Minho nodded and faced the crowd. "Be careful," he said dryly. "Don't die.

It's kind of hard to ask a dead guy what he did wrong.

I've been shucked and gone to heaven.

ust follow me and run like your life depends on it. Because it does.

ou get lazy, you get sad. Start givin' up. Plain and simple.

Sometimes they do things to make me do the opposite of what they think, I think, they think, I am going to do.

Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.

In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.