I don't usually think of my writing as a "challenge" because I enjoy the process so much. I suppose that's what's helped me to avoid "writer's block" all these years. ~Melody Carlson
#quotes #melody-carlson #writing #process

If Darwin could see what we now see, what we now know about the ocean, about the atmosphere, about the nature of life, as we now understand it, about the importance of microbes. I think he would just beam with joy that many of the thoughts and the glimpses of the majesty of life on Earth that he had during his life, now magnified many times over. ~Sylvia Earle
#quotes #sylvia-earle #darwin

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion. ~Chinese Proverb
#proverbs #chinese-proverbs #decisions #ignorance

We get stuck in old thought and behavior patterns that may have been effective when we were twelve months or twelve years old, but now only serve to hold us back. And, while those around us may have no problem correcting our minor flaws, they let the big ones slide, because it would mean attacking who we are. ~Neil Strauss
#quotes #neil-strauss #childhood #behavior

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. ~Oprah Winfrey
#quotes #oprah-winfrey #motivation

To create worry humans elongate fear with anticipation and memory, expand it in imagination and fuel it with emotion. The uniquely human mental process called worrying depends upon having a brain that can reason, remember, reflect, feel, and imagine. Only humans have a brain big enough to do this simultaneously and do it well. ~Edward Hallowell
#quotes #edward-hallowell #mind #memories #imagination

He who eats alone, coughs alone. ~Arabic Proverb
#proverbs #arabic-proverbs

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Arabic Proverb
#proverbs #arabic-proverbs #books

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you, not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again? ~Amy Tan
#quotes #amy-tan #family

Here's the thing, for me at least: this is a huge genre now. It wasn't always so. Not so many years ago, it wasn't so. There is a tremendous diversity in fantasy today. ~R. A. Salvatore
#quotes #r-a-salvatore #fantasy

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. ~Zen Proverb
#proverbs #zen-proverbs #buddhism

Something will be there when the flood recedes. We know that. It will be those people now standing in the water, and on those rooftops, many black, many poor. Homeless. Overlooked. And it will be New Orleans, though its memory may be shortened, its self-gaze and eccentricity scoured out so that what's left is a city more like other cities, less insular, less self-regarding, but possibly more self-knowing after today. A city on firmer ground. ~Richard Ford
#quotes #richard-ford #poverty #floods #new-orleans

No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin. ~Richard Owen
#quotes #richard-owen #nature #charles-darwin

There is a theory that creativity arises when individuals are out of sync with their environment. To put it simply, people who fit in with their communities have insufficient motivation to risk their psyches in creating something truly new, while those who are out of sync are driven by the constant need to prove their worth. ~Gary Taubes
#quotes #gary-taubes #motivation #creativity #science

But one of the amazing things about documentary is that you can remake it every time you make one. There is no rule about how a documentary film has to be made. ~Errol Morris
#quotes #errol-morris #documentaries

All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions. ~Aristotle
#quotes #aristotle #knowledge

You can't pick cherries with your back to the tree. ~J. P. Morgan
#quotes #j-p-morgan

I had my nearest and most intimate glimpses of the presence of my Lord in those dread moments when musket, club or spear was being levelled at my life. ~John Gibson Paton
#quotes #john-gibson-paton #god

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office. ~George Bernard Shaw
#quotes #george-bernard-shaw #war #soldier

I am "too fiery," yet I wish to be seen as I am and I would lose all rather than soften away anything. ~Margaret Fuller
#quotes #margaret-fuller #heart #wish

The trauma said. Don't write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones. ~Andrea Gibson
#quotes #andrea-gibson #sorrow

Every great story seems to begin with a snake. ~Nicolas Cage
#quotes #nicolas-cage #stories

Everyone pushes a falling fence. ~Chinese Proverb
#proverbs #chinese-proverbs

The term "genre" eventually becomes pejorative because you're referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started. ~Christopher Nolan
#quotes #christopher-nolan

Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality. ~Ralph Marston
#quotes #ralph-marston #expectations #performance