We've grown and changed, screwed up, but at the beginning of each summer, we found each other again. Or maybe we never really lost each other.
—Nyrae Dawn in Four Summers
A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.
—Louis L'Amour in The Walking Drum
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
—Jack London
When composer Igor Stravinsky was fifty-seven, he settled in the United States and a year later decided to apply for American citizenship. He made an appointment to see the appropriate official. At his first interview the official asked the famous composer his name. "Stra-vin-sky," he replied, speaking each syllable distinctly. "You could change it, you know," suggested the official.
—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
—Lisa Schroeder in Far from You
I realize that love is as ever-changing as a sky or as an ocean: always there, but not always sunny or clean or calm.
—Katy Evans in Manwhore +1
You can't just change who you are on the outside and expect it to change who you are on the inside.
— Jessica Sorensen in The Secret of Ella and Micha
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
—William James
I thought I could change the world. It took me a hundred years to figure out I can't change the world. I can only change Bessie. And, honey, that ain't easy either.
—Annie Elizabeth "Bessie" Delany, at 104
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything.
—Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
There are things in life you can change—your weight, your appearance, your mindset, etc.—but there is one thing you cannot change and that is other people. Try as we might, we cannot get people to love us. Even when we are the coolest best version of ourselves someone is going to say, "Not for me." But if we feel good about ourselves we can shrug it off and say, "It's just a date," and know that there will be others.
—Greg Behrendt in It's Just a Date
Life is boring. People are vengeful. Good things always end. We do so many things and we don't know why, and if we do find out why, it's decades later and knowing why doesn't matter any more.
—Douglas Coupland in All Families are Psychotic
She's your one. The one who reaches you. The one who makes you different.
—Abbi Glines in Hold On Tight
You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
—Louise L. Hay in You Can Heal Your Life