Words are powerful, which is a big part of the reason we writers write. Someone posted the following line on Twitter yesterday, and I have declared it my new personal mantra:Pain is inevitable, suffering optional.
This got me thinking about what phrases are most powerful to me - which ones do I "reach for" in order to help me through life or just to make me smile. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
- You're a slave to money and then you die. (Verve - Bittersweet Symphony)
- What goes around, comes around.
- When you're going through hell, keep going. (Winston Churchill)
- It's all a bunch of bullshit. (My friend and I made this up while working together as interior designers!)
- Tomorrow's another day.
- Living well is the best revenge.
- Choose your battles wisely.
- Everything happens for the best. (My nana used to always say this.)
- Follow your passion, follow your heart.
These are a few of my personal fav
orites. I'd love to hear some of yours!
orites. I'd love to hear some of yours!
16 comments:
I LOVE that Winston Churchill quote! One of my favs. My personal mantra is kinda dorky. It's from Yoda. "Try not! DO, or DO not. There is no try."
There's a country song with the "if you're going through hell" as a chorus. One of the other lines is "I found a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam and she lied to me!" (In other words, really? you expected good advice from this quarter?)
I love those! I have one lately I use a lot from a fellow writer on twitter.
"Writing is the only thing I do in my life where the frustration makes me happy." ~Adrien-Luc Sanders @smoulderingsea
I might have to amend it though to Writing and Motherhood, cause I can get pretty frustrated as mom too :D
My dad - who was a preacher - always loved to quote an old Southern preacher he'd known when he was little:
"My favorite verse in the Bible is, 'and it came to pass.' Whatever you're going through, it's-a gonna pass in time. You just gotta stick it out."
And it came to pass. Perfect.
I just watched Pretty In Pink again recently and Andie said in it, "If somebody doesn't believe in me, I can't believe in them." I thought to myself that is pretty darn smart. Another favorite, "If you can believe it, you can achieve it." Going along with that one, "If you believe you can't do something, you've failed before you've started." And lastly, "The people who succeed are the people who keep getting up."
One of my favs is from the TV show Angel.
"They can only undo you as far as you think you deserve to be undone."
Every time I think it, it has more power. Reminds me of some things a certain BFF might have said to me a time or two. :)
My current writing mantra, since I'm back to working on a new first draft, is "Don't get it right, get it written."
It's saved me a lot of agony and heartache.
Thanks for sharing the quotes!
All of these are good, but that Winston Churchill one really stands out! I love it. I'm going to have to remember that one...
I love "Living well is the best revenge." Haha! So true. :)
Some of my favorites:
"To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else." ~Emily Dickinson
"There is more to life than increasing its speed." ~Gandhi
"So many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever." ~Isak Dinesen
“Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” ~Mark Twain
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." ~G.K. Chesterton
"Joy first, and then anything else you have time for." ~Abraham-Hicks
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." ~Herm Albright
And my favorite: Happiness is a choice!
Hope you're having a great day, Debra!
How about the abreviated version of the following. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world"
Those are great ones. Mine is "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak" by Epictetus.
One of my favorites is: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi
And "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." Jack London
Of course, I use Vivi's Yoda quote on a daily basis too. ;)
I think Laura Marcella chose my G.K. Chesterton quote, and Anon 3:56 chose another one of my favs, those I can't remember who said it.
Anyway, I like this one as well. It's supposedly from the movie I Think I Love My Wife, though I feel like I've heard it somewhere else as well:
"Life is about choice. We are the sum of our choices. And most of them are made for us. You can't choose when you're born. You can't choose where you're born. You can't choose your family. You can't even choose who you love. But you can choose how you love."
Great post, Debra!
So many great quotes here. For some reason the only that comes to mind right now is a magnet my daughter picked out for her car: "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you are all the same." I love that she likes being unique.
Hey Deb,
Great post.
My favorite one is in Icelandic, but I will try to do it justice by translating it.
All good things come in time.
LOVE
Susanna
I always loved in Anne of Green Gables when her teacher said, "Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it."
That's probably not exactly how she said it, but definitely the gist of it. =)
Post a Comment