Dear Hope Nation,
There’s no accounting for taste. Once every week or so, I devote this letter to quotations on various subjects. Some of you absolutely love the respite from news about Hope or thoughts on recovery. I’ve gotten many emails and seen some Facebook posts filled with gushery over these letters. On the other hand, I’ve also gotten messages telling me the writer immediately discards the letters with quotes, only reading those that are directly from Hope, with no intermediating voices. To the first group, I say, “Here you go!” To the second, “Tomorrow is another day.”
“Anger, resentment and
jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others– it only changes yours.”
? Shannon Alder, 300 Questions to Ask Your
Parents Before It’s Too Late
“Never hold resentments
for the person who tells you what you need to hear; count them among your
truest, most caring, and valuable friends.”
? Mike Norton, Just Another War Story
“Time doesn’t heal all
wounds, only distance can lessen the sting of them.”
? Shannon Alder
“Do your thing and don’t
care if they like it.”
? Tina Fey, Bossypants
“I think the reward for
conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
? Rita Mae Brown
“Life is too short to waste
any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first
place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn’t have
the time to sit around and talk about you. What’s important to me is not
others’ opinions of me, but what’s important to me is my opinion of myself.”
? C. JoyBell C.
“When you’re different,
sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are.
All you notice is the person who doesn’t.”
? Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart
“One of the greatest
regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being
yourself.”
? Shannon L. Alder
“To the people who love
you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your
shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then
dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be
imperfect and beautiful, too. ”
? Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For
Lifelong Beauty
“how you love yourself is
how you teach others
to love you”
? Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
“If you have the ability
to love, love yourself first.”
? Charles Bukowski
“Don’t worry if people
think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity
that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re
destined to be.”
? Jennifer Elisabeth, Born Ready: Unleash Your
Inner Dream Girl
“Selfishness is not
living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to
live.”
? Oscar Wilde
“I say let the world go
to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
? Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground
“To be happy, we must not
be too concerned with others.”
? Albert Camus
“The world says:
“You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and
the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and
demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that
this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the
poor, envy and murder.”
? Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“I love people who make
me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a
multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”
? Audrey Hepburn
“Sometimes crying or
laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.”
? Veronica Roth, Divergent
“There is nothing in the
world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
? Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“If you want to tell
people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
? George Bernard Shaw
“If we couldn’t laugh we
would all go insane.”
? Robert Frost
“Laughter is wine for the
soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness – the
hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.”
? Sean O’Casey
“The earth laughs in
flowers.”
? Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I know not all that may
be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”
? Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale
“He was born with a gift
of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”
? Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche
“If only she could be so
oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for
laughter. ”
? Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“When someone is crying,
of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying
to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”
? Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
“But a mermaid has no
tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
? Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
“Tears shed for another
person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.”
? José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of
Faith, Hope and Love
“Cry. Forgive. Learn.
Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”
? Steve Maraboli
“Heaven knows we need
never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of
earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than
before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
? Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
“Don’t cry over someone
who wouldn’t cry over you.”
? Lauren Conrad
“Laughter and tears are
both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since
there is less cleaning do to do afterward.”
? Kurt Vonnegut
Tomorrow, back to original writing!
You matter. I matter. We matter.
Keith