Favorite Quotes

This is not much of post but I realized yesterday after watching the 1986 miniseries version of A Little Princess* that I couldn't easily find the quote I have saved from it when I did a re-read many years ago. Turns out that "Favorite quotes" section of Facebook is only accessible on the desktop app these days, which makes me think it's just a matter of time before it is phased out entirely. I can't say that Blogspot will be around forever either but at least this compilation exists in two places now.  

"I improve on misquotation." - Cary Grant

"My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation." - Jane Austen, Persuasion 

"Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries." - Jimmy Carter 

"It's not where you go, it's what you look for." - Seth Godin 

"My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can." - Cary Grant 

"I'm a cynical idealist." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise 

"My soul is too big for the rest of me." - Edna St. Vincent Millay 

"Half the lies they tell about me aren't true." - Yogi Berra 

"Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you cannot erase it." - Anonymous 

"A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else." - Jane Austen, Emma 

"Patience is a weapon. Caution is a virtue." - The Singing Revolution 

"I often quote myself. I find it adds spice to the conversation." - George Bernard Shaw 

"Such men who put women down were really rather weak themselves, building themselves up by belittling women. A truly strong man would never want that." - Alexander McCall Smith, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party 

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - Franklin D. Roosevelt 

"Even within my own community, I can see where I have been vital sometimes as a member of the Auntie Brigade. My job is not merely to spoil and indulge my niece and nephew (though I do take that assignment to heart) but also to be a roving auntie to the world — an ambassador auntie — who is on hand wherever help is needed, in anybody's family whatsoever. There are people I've been able to help, sometimes fully supporting them for years, because I am not obliged, as a mother would be obliged, to put all my energies and resources into the full-time rearing of a child. There are a whole bunch of Little League uniforms and orthodontist's bills and college educations that I will never have to pay for, thereby freeing up resources to spread more widely across the community. In this way, I, too, foster life. There are many, many ways to foster life. And believe me, every single one of them is essential." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed 

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." - Howard Zinn 

"Do ya want to be a bowling pin your whole life? Just standing there perfectly content to be knocked down time and time again? Or, would you rather be the ball? I gotta tell ya being a ball feels a hell of a lot better." - Dead Like Me 

"I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a pita. Why the pita? That counts as another mystery." - Demetri Martin, This Is A Book 

"Work is the great reality. Beauty is the great aim." - Dublin Writers Museum 

"When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” - Thomas Gold Appleton 

" 'Try and make a clever woman of her, Lavinia; I should like her to be a clever woman.' Mrs. Penniman, at this, looked thoughtful a moment. 'My dear Austin,' she then inquired, 'do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?' 'Good for what?' asked the Doctor. 'You are good for nothing unless you are clever.' " - Henry James, Washington Square 

"If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that -- warm things, kind things, sweet things -- help and comfort and laughter -- and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess 

"There's a fine line between mystery and just lying. When you mystify, you're alluding to the mystique that there's something worth uncovering under the heavy shroud of smoke. If all you have is cobwebs and a basement full of jelly jars with the little screws in 'em, well, everybody has that, so don't invite me over anymore." - Brian Fallon 

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." - Martin Luther King Jr.

*entertaining enough, but the 1995 film version has a special place in my heart