Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?
Christine
I love a good quote so I have all kinds of them written on bits of paper and in my notebooks but here are two of my absolute faves
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” Amelia Earhart
I love this because I have some much trouble in prioritizing and I’m starting my tasks but I am very persistent so this quote feels like it honours my challenges while recognizing my strengths. I know she didn’t mean it the way I am using it but I find it helpful all the same.
And my most repeated quote was something author Ursula Vernon tweeted to me when I jokingly mentioned in a tweet that I was invoking her and two of my other favourite authors to help me get my writing done one evening.
“When it’s over, the words that you dragged out one at a time in tedium read exactly the same as the ones made of white hot inspiration.”
I really love the reminder that writing (and any other endeavour) is not just about being brilliant and inspired, it’s also about continuing to plug away it it until it is done. The fact that things are hard or boring is not a sign that something is wrong, those feelings are just part of the process.
Natalie
In college, 1993, I read the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. “Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum”
Don’t let the bastards get you down. And U2 had released a song, Acrobat that has the lyric “so don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
Shockingly relevant my entire adult life!
Nicole
I have a few:
There but for the grace of (Goddess/luck) go I.
All we have is now.
“You can spit on freedom but you don’t know what it’s like not to have freedom” (not verbatim but Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Elan
“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale
Tracy
“Nevertheless she persisted.” I have it tattooed on my arm. It’s less important that Mitch McConnell said it and more important that it was about Elizabeth Warren’s refusal to be silenced or shut down!
Sam
Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Diane
I have always tried to live by my dad’s pithy “life’s tough, chum”. Whenever I was feeling unhappy or whiny about something, that was his message to either figure out a way to accept it gracefully or fight what I thought was wrong.
Cate
“People want to help — just ask them.” Said to me by a guide in Myanmar in 2013 and I have always found it a profound principle for life. Not everyone will help, and often people won’t “help” if you don’t ask them. But when you explicitly say, “this is what I need,” there will almost always be someone who will help. Example: I was on a solo bike trip in Lithuania, I had to walk my loaded bike down a pedestrian underpass that had a tiny ramp in the middle of stairs. The bike picked up momentum and fell over, trapping me underneath. People walked by me at first, but when I raised my hand and said “help” four people immediately stopped. Taking this stance has enabled me to be more comfortable traveling alone, taking risks in my work, and being less shy about asking people for support for our learning project in Uganda.
Martha
Here’s mine:
Peace activist Kay MacPherson used to say “make every meeting a party, and every party a meeting.” It was a good way to look at our lives in a holistic way rather than a fragmented, compartmentalized one. But like all quotes, the meaning only resonates for so long as we evolve and grow.
The summer before the pandemic, I attended a yoga class where I was the only one in attendance. We had an incredible rainstorm throughout the class which was strangely soothing. The yogi always chose a quote to close the class. This time she chose a quote from Yung Pueblo: “I am at my strongest when I am calm.”
I wrote about it for the blog: “I am my strongest when I am calm. As I write this sentence here, I feel the stress of my day leak away. It reminds me I don’t have to be buzzing madly like a bee from one flower to another. I can pick a moment, or a pose, and lean into it, think about what’s happening, and noticing the little changes that emerge or arise the longer I hold the pose.
Those eight little words are profound. It’s made me think again about what strength means. For me it’s been about asking for help, stepping back, pausing to breathe, feeling the moment, accepting a change in plans, approach, direction. These days, it has also meant I rest with an idea to see what happens, to understand what emerges from the stillness, and to feel the surety that comes from embracing the balance that comes from both the push and the pull.”
