You have to learn to be unafraid when you’re a nobody, because you’re going to be really fucking afraid when you’re a somebody and all the lights are on you.
—Lady Gaga
Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed that easily.
—Dorothy Day
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
—Marie Curie
What is sacred about all of our lives, even those of us who would never dream of using such a word for it, is that God speaks to us through what happens to us — even through such unpromising events as walking up the road to get the mail out of the mailbox, maybe, or seeing something in the news that brings you up short, or laughing yourself silly with a friend. If skeptics ask to be shown an instance of God speaking to them in their lives, I suggest that they pay closer attention to the next time when, for unaccountable reasons, they find tears in their eyes.
—Frederick Buechner
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
—Tom Peters
It is not the conscious changes made in their lives by men and women — a new job, a new town, a divorce — which really shape them, like the chapter headings in a biography, but a long, slow mutation of emotion, hidden, all-penetrative; something by which they may be so taken up that the practical outward changes of their lives in the world, noted with surprise, scandal, or envy by others, pass almost unnoticed by themselves.
—Nadine Gordimer
Look twice before you leap.
—Charlotte Bronte
Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement . . . says heaven and earth in one word . . . speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.
—Christopher Fry
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
—Ernest Hemingway
When nothing is for sure, we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.
—Carlos Castaneda
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
—Socrates
If you have to boast about what you do for a living to attract attention, attraction or approval, then you're seeking the wrong kind of people, for it has nothing to do with who you are and everything to do with what you do. Is that the kind of people you want? The ones who are more attracted to your status than you?
—Donna Lynn Hope
During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
—Joann C. Jones
I suppose the things that you always take for granted, that you don't even notice, are what you miss the most.
—Sarra Manning in You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
—Cynthia Ozick