Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.
Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.
Dad was a philosopher and had what he called his Theory of Purpose, which held that everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody’s time.
If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.
God deals us all different hands. How we play ’em is up to us.
Submitting seemed to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail- the gumption to try and save ourselves- isn’t that what he wanted us to do?
Everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody’s time.
You didn’t need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.
In this world, it’s not enough to have a fine education. You need a piece of paper to prove you got it.
Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.
New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.
You should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.
That was the thing to remember about all monsters, They love to frightenpeople, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.
People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what’s in her nature and accept it.
I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn’t half bad to be in place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.
One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.
She had her addictions and one of them was reading.
Don’t you make fun of me or my children! Some babies are premature. Mine were all postmature. That’s why they’re so smart. Their brains had longer to develop.
No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.
People worried too much about their children. Suffering when you’re young is good for you. It immunized your body and soul…
Fussing over children who cry only encourages them. That’s positive reinforcement for negative behavior.
It (the sun) didn’t really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it, that was up to me.
You should never hate anyone, not even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You had to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.
As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.
You’ll never make a fortune working for the boss man
I feel like I failed,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up,” Jim said. “She might not have turned out like you planned, but that don’t mean she turned out wrong.
When people kill themselves, they think they’re ending the pain, but all they’re doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.
I’m none too big on giving advice,’ Aunt Al said. ‘Most times when folks ask for advice, they already know what they should do. They just want to hear it from someone else.
You can’t prepare for everything life’s going to throw at you. And you can’t avoid danger. It’s there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you’ll out on all the adventure.
It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.
If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.
You can’t cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim
It’s really not that hard to put food on the table if that’s what you decide to do.
Horses were never wrong. They always did what they did for a reason, and it was up to you to figure it out.
You’re not supposed to laugh at your own father. Ever.
Life’s too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are
Anyone who thinks he’s too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito”, I’d tell people.
One of the ways to discover our toughness and resiliency is to look back at where we come from. (from Amazon description)
Nobody’s perfect. We’re all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.
The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the inmense darkness of the range.
So they told us all about how other kids were deceived by their parents, how the toys the grown-ups claimed were made by little elves wearing bell caps in their workshop at the North Pole actually had labels on them saying MADE IN JAPAN.
If you had weak eyes, they needed exercise to get strong. Glasses were like crutches. They prevented people with feeble eyes from seeing the world on their own.
You’re in a horse race but you’re thinking like a sheep. Sheep don’t win horse races.
You know you’re down and out when Okies laugh at you,’ she said. With our garbage bag taped window, our tied down hood, and art supplies strapped to the roof, we’d out-Okied the Okies.
Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You’re scarred for life.
I sit down at my desk pretty early in the morning and write all day until about 4 or 5 p.m.