In the few years since I’ve started to travel this world, I’ve found myself changing. The cramped cynical worldview of a man who’d only seen life through the narrow prism of the restaurant kitchen had altered. I’d been so many places, I’d met so many people from wildly divergent backgrounds, countries, and cultures.
Everywhere I’d been, I’d been, as in Beruit, treated so well. I’d been the recipient of so many random acts of kindness from strangers and I’d begun to think that no matter where I went or who I sat down with, that food and a few drinks seemed always to bring people together. That this planet was filled with basically good and decent people doing the best they could, if frequently under difficult circumstances. That the human animal was perhaps a better and nicer species than I had once thought.
I’d begun to believe that the dinner table was the great leveler, where people from opposite sides of the world could always sit down and talk and eat and drink and if not solve all the worlds problems, at least find, for a time, common ground.
Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe the world’s not like that at all. Maybe in the real world—the one without cameras and happy food and travel shows—everybody, the good and the bad together, are all crushed under some terrible wheel.
I hope, I really hope, that I’m wrong about that.
—Anthony Bourdain
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
—Helen Keller in Optimism
Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
—Anne Frank
No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.
—Florida Scott-Maxwell
If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one.
—Cavett Robert
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all—he's walking on them.
—Leonard Louis Levinson
Erv had a gift for optimism. He believed what he wanted to. Ruth said that if Erv tossed a ball in the air three times, tried to hit it three times with a bat, and three times missed, he would, undisturbed, conclude: Wow, what a pitcher.
—Steve Fishman
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.
—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love
Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.
—Walt Whitman
It is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to.
—Dodie Smith in I Capture the Castle
I find nothing more depressing than optimism.
—Paul Fussell
You can change the place you live, your clothes, your interests, your friends, your religion and even your partner. However, if you forgot to change your mind, attitude, beliefs about the world, how you treat people and how you plan to be different this time around, why did you even bother?
—Shannon L. Alder
The future will be better tomorrow.
—Dan Quayle
You would be surprised at the lengths you will go to believe the best about someone if you truly love him.
—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller
Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.
—Italian proverb