Quotes: Every You, Every Me by David Levithan

I reecently finished another David Levithan’s book, Every You, Every Me and as usual I’m overwhelmed with many great quotes and words of wisdom from David. He is really a genius! So before I write my review for the book I decided to share first to all of you David’s clever and thought provoking words.

“You don’t know me. You know one me, just like I know one you. And you can’t know every me, and I can’t know every you.”

LIFE

“I don’t want you to think I got through this undamaged, okay? But I’m learning to live with it. Because otherwise, the damage is all you are.”

“My mind was getting away from reality again, and I reluctantly drew it back in. There is no getting away from reality.”

“Your life is inescapable. Unless you decide to escape it.”

“Everyone tried with me. And everytime, it felt like the whole point of life was to see if trying was ever enough.”

“There is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. The only question is whether it’s a bearable one.”

“That word again. Happy. It’s a curse. The pursuit of happiness makes us deeply unhappy. It’s a trap. 

LOVE / RELATIONSHIPS

“Let’s always love each other, and never be in love with each other.”

“This is the thing they don’t tell you about being a third wheel – it’s not like you’re the wheel that’s added on. You were one of the original two wheels, but suddenly you’re not so important anymore. The relationship drives fine without you.”

“If you zoom close-if you get really close to someone, if you really get close to yourself-then you lose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can’t see anything anymore.”

MEMORIES

“I was starting to think I was making up memories, just to have answers.
Our brain does that sometimes.
Or at least mine does.”

“There’s no way to release yourself from a memory. It ends when it wants to end, whether it’s in a flash or long after you’ve begged it to stop.”

“I couldn’t remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.”

“A photograph it a souvenir of a memory.
It is not a moment.
It is the looking at the photograph that becomes the moment. Your own moment.”

“Void is when there is absolutely nothing there and the nothing is natural, a complete vacuum. But empty – with empty, you are aware of what’s supposed to be there. Empty means something is missing.”

“I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.”

“I can’t stop looking, even when I want to have to stop. I get lost in ifs. They are always there if if if if and I should only be able to tune in to them if I’m on the right frequency. But that’s the thing about me: the frequencies don’t divide.”

“My mother said I should have a ‘change of scenery.’ The word scenery made be think of a play. And as we were driving around, it made sense that way. Because no matter how much the scenery changed, we were still on the same stage.”

“That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bought at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of star-watching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something.”

DEATH

“I have always been aware of how I break.
I know what kind of situations will break me.
I know what kind of people will do it.
I know how much it will hurt.”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” you said one night. “Does death bring freedom, or is it the end of freedom?”

“But death is not freedom. For a moment, it can look like freedom. But then it’s death.

Quotes: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Just sharing some of lovely quotes from Gayle Forman’s book, Just One Day. I love every bit of this book just like Gayle Forman’s If I Stay and Where She Went. In this one I adore the travel part of the novel. Paris is just one of my dream place to explore, and reading this is just like visiting every corner of Paris with wonderful companions with me. Love all the travel insights/quotes from this book so I’m sharing them and more to all of you. Enjoy reading!

TRAVEL

“Travelling is like a talent, like whistling or dancing. And some people have it.”

“Travelling’s not something you’re good at. It’s something you do. Like breathing. You can’t work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents.”

“…everything is happening all the time, but if you don’t put yourself in the path of it, you miss it. When you travel, you put yourself out there. It’s not always great. Sometimes it’s terrible. But other times it’s not so bad.”

“He’s a traveler. A drifter, really. Accidents are the defining force in his life.”

“You thought too hard. Same with travel. You can’t work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents.”

“At the start of the trip, I took shots of the sights. The Colosseum. Belvedere Palace. Mozart Square. But I stopped. They never came out very well, and you could get postcards of these things. But there are no postcards of this. Of life.”

“… preferred to experience something rather than obsessively record it.”

“It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen.”

LIFE

“Sometimes the best way to find out what you’re supposed to do is by doing the thing you’re not supposed to do.”

“. . . it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things.”

“Sometimes you can’t know until you know.”

“You never know what will last.”

“I think everything is happening all the time, but if you don’t put yourself in the path of it, you miss it.”

“It’s funny the things you think you’re scared of until they’re upon you, and then you’re not.”

“When the sun shines, you let it shine on you.”

“Forward momentum. That’s my new motto. No regrets. And no going back.”

“The little things that happen. Sometimes they’re insignificant; other times, they change everything.”

“The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it’s like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to spread happiness.”

LOVE

“Part of me knows one more day won’t do anything except postpone the heartbreak. But another part of me believes differently. We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.”

“You have to fall in love to be in love, but falling in love isn’t the same as being in love.”

“And that’s when I understand that I have been stained. Whether I’m still in love with him, whether he was ever in love with me, and no matter who he’s in love with now, Willem changed my life. He showed me how to get lost, and then I showed myself how to get found.”

“Stains are even worse when you’re the only one who can see them.”

“Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind.”

“I realize then that it’s not enough to know what someone is called. You have to know who they are.”

“Even if you find him. Even if he didn’t leave you on purpose, he can’t possibly live up to the person you’ve built him into.”

“The line between true self and feigned self is blurred on all sides. Which I think is a rather handy metaphor for falling in love.”

PRETENDING

“No one is who they pretend to be.”

“I don’t know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don’t want to be her anymore.”

“…I’m an expert faker. I’m so good at faking I don’t even know when I’m doing it.”

“The people we pretend at, they’re already in us. That’s why we pretend them in the first place.”

Quotes: Slammed by Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover‘s Slammed series is one of the few contemporary series I loved so much and actually made it to my favorite reads. I haven’t tried reviewing any book yet from this series, because I know that I will just ramble too much and won’t justify how wonderful they are.

Anyway, since I’m not capable of writing a coherent thoughts at the moment, I will just share some beautiful lines that I loved from the first book, Slammed. Actually, there so much more I want to share like the beautiful and hearth-felt poems from the book, but I think that you need to read the story on your own to fully experience the beauty of those lines. I’m planning to do a reread of all three books of this series soon and hopefully after that I’ll be able to share my thoughts coherently to all of you and convince you more how great this series is. For the now, let me just tease you all with these quotes from the first book.

LIFE

“If I live the life I’m given, I won’t be scared to die.”

“Don’t take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it.”

“It’s not just lies they’re referring to. It’s life. You can’t run to another town, another place, another state. Whatever it is you’re running from-it goes with you. It stays with you until you find out how to confront it.”

“It wasn’t death that punched you, Layken. It was life. Life happens. Shit happens. And it happens a lot. To a lot of people.”

“…sometimes life doesn’t happen in chronological order.”

“Nothing is permanent. The only thing any of us have in common is the inevitable.”

LOVE

“I’ve never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted.”
“Is there a difference?” I ask.
“Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It’s looking back on a past that you can’t change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There’s so much more to relationships than just love.”

“You’ve been doing so much thinking with your head that you’re ignoring your heart completely. There has to be a balance. The fact that both of you are letting other things consume you is about to ruin any chance you’ll ever have at being happy.”

“Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name.”

DEATH

“Death. The only thing inevitable in life.”

“But now–it’s like God has it out for us. Why both of them? Wasn’t my dad enough? It’s like death came and punched us square in the face.”

LIES

“The weight of lies will bring you down, follow you to every town ’cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there.”

POETRY

“The points are not the point; the point is poetry.”

“So what if the heartaches you wrote last year isn’t what you’re feeling today. it may be exactly what the person in the front row is feeling. What you’re feeling now, and the person you may reach with your words five years from now- that’s why you write poetry.”

“People are free to write what they want to write about. But the thing that bothers me is, what if the person who writes it doesn’t want to relive it? What if a dude performs a slam about a bad breakup, but then he gets over it and moves on? He falls in love with some other chick, but now there’s probably this YouTube video floating around on the internet of him talking all sad about how his heart got broke. That sucks. If you perform it, or even write it down, someday you’ll have to relive it.”

SOME REMINDERS

“Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don’t have questions, you’ll never find answers.”

“Push your boundaries, that’s what they’re there for.”

“Choose your battles, but don’t choose very many.”

“Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life.”

“…respect the hand that I was dealt. And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand.”

“Understanding a situation doesn’t always make it easier”

“Keep an open mind; it’s the only way new things can get in.”

“Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once.”

“People can’t cry forever. Everyone eventually falls asleep.”

 

Quotes: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Aside from reading fictions I love reading inspirational books. Almost one third of my bookshelves consist of these type of books. If fictions are my distractions and way to escape reality, inspirational books are my guide to reality. I’m not writing a review for this book, but instead I’ll list some of the interesting quotes found in the book. Most of these quotes are good reminder of things we already know but needed to be reminded of and some insightful and thought provoking questions in life.

LIFE
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”

“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life, … If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”

“Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”

“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. “

“I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion. We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived.”

“We’ve placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people’s rights. That’s how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.”

“There are more ways than one to measure profits and losses.”

“It’s not helpful if we spend every day dreading tomorrow.”

“You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”

“When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they’ve given up on you.”

“Too many people go through life complaining bout their problems. I’ve always believed that if you took on tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out. “

“Not everything needs to be fixed”

“… I was hugely impressed… was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn’t know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn’t want to leave until he understood. That’s heroic to me. I wish every grad student had that attitude. “

“An injured lion wants to know if he can still roar.”

“Most people who have told a lie think they got away with it … when in fact, they didn’t”

“Never make a decision until you have to.”

“Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

“You don’t beat the grim reaper by living longer; you beat the grim reaper by living better.”

“If you can find your footing between two cultures, sometimes you can have the best of both worlds.”

“Somehow, with the passage of time, and the dealines that life imposes, surrending became the right thing to do”

You may not want to hear it,but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.”

SUCCESS

“The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls. “

“If you can find an opening, you can probably find a way to float through it.”

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life, … If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”

“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. “

“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. “

“The questions are always more important than the answers.”

“It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you get hit…and keep moving forward.”

“A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.”

“You can always change you plan, but only if you have one.”

“One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.”

“Give yourself permission to dream. Fuel your kids’ dreams too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.”

“Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I’m a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it ‘the eaten by wolves factor.’ If I do something, what’s the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.”

“Complainning does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”

“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you. “

“No job should, be beneath us. And if you can’t(or won’t) sort mail, Where is the proof that you can do anything?”

“If I work hard enough, there will be things I can do tomorrow that I can’t do today.”

“…engineering isn’t about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.”

“Sometimes all you have to do is ask, and it can lead to all your dreams coming true.”

“I don’t believe in the no-win scenario”

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want”

“The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.”

“Your patience will be both appreciated and rewarded”

“If you want something bad enough, never give up (and take a boost when offered).”

PEOPLE

“People are more important than things.”

“Focus on other people, not on yourself.”

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”

“When we’re connected to others, we become better people.”

“A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.”

“Halfhearted or insincere apologies are often worse than not apologizing at all because recipients find them insulting.”

“Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.”

“Go out and do for others what somebody did for you.”

LOVE

“Look, I’m going to find a way to be happy, and I’d really love to be happy with you, but if I can’t be happy with you, then I’ll find a way to be happy without you.”

“When it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.”

“Kids need to know their parents love them. Their parents don’t need to be alive for that to happen.”

Peaceful Warrior (2006)

I just watched Peaceful Warrior last night, thanks to Ian Somerhalder who suggested the book as a good read. I wouldn’t know about the book or the movie adaptation if I haven’t seen his interview. The movie was released on June 2006, based on Dan Millman autobiography novel – “Way of the Peaceful Warrior“. I’m sure there are lot’s of reviews for this movie already, so I’m not writing one even I want to. I’ll just try to explore more about the film’s preachy lessons which is overly cluttered and somehow redundant in the script. They are each a bit of truth about life and are stated so simply that they feel like an unveiled realization.

“How do you know that you haven’t been asleep your whole life? How do you know you’re not asleep right now?”

These two questions makes me pause for awhile. One of the most powerful and thought-provoking lines from the film. I found my self asking the same questions and still not sure about the answer or maybe in denial. Maybe I’m half-sleep and half-awake, busy doing all my stuffs everyday but not really sure why do I need to do all things like most of us.

“Everybody tells you what to do and what’s good for you . They don’t want you to find your own answers. They want you to believe theirs.”

There are lots of people I know who falls in this category – the “know it all” person. And sometimes I’m also one of them. I do believe that it is wiser to learn from someone experiences. Why make the same mistakes if you can benefit from other’s mistakes? But there are things worth experiencing in life, no matter how difficult it may be. Experience is really a great teacher.

“Life is a mystery; don’t waste time figuring it out.”

I am a victim of this unending search trying to figure out what my life is all about. Up to now, I honestly don’t know what is my greater purpose. I wish someone could tell me. There are so many plans and goals that seems unending.

“Don’t fall into the trap — If only I had this, I’d be … If only … , I’d get to be happy.”

Sometimes life is an if-then-else statement for me. Everything is connected to something else.

“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer. And even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.”

If this is the case, I better get what I want even If I suffer in the end. At least I experience getting it than not at all. And why thus it sounds like a love quotation – “It’s better to love and lost than to never have loved at all”?

“A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does.”

There are people who are stuck doing something they don’t really love, but they keep on doing it anyway. As if they don’t have a choice. Like in a workplace, some people go to work everyday to do their job and make a living but don’t really enjoy what they are doing. But when you find your passion and love what you do, work doesn’t become work anymore.

There are some philosophy in this film that are contradicting but still everything has it own sense of truth about it.

Overall this movie is a powerful tale of enlightenment and redemption that conveys emotional uplift to viewers. Probably the most important lesson is how to keep getting back up when life knocks you down and how to continue to follow your dreams, even after your world is shattered. I plan to read the book and hopefully I can get a copy soon. As I checked online the local bookstore doesn’t have available copy of it. I’ll just try to find a copy somewhere else. For other inspirational quotes from the movie, check my previous post.

Quotes: Peaceful Warrior

Here are some inspiring quotes from the movie Peaceful Warrior based on Dan Millman’s book “Way of The Peaceful Warrior”:

• “The first realization of a warrior is not knowing.”

• “A warrior acts, a fool reacts.”

• “Don’t pin your success on outcomes.”

• “Every action has it’s pleasure and it’s price.”

• “There is no starting or stopping – only doing.”

• “Take out the trash from what’s inside your head.”

• “There’s no greater purpose than service to others.”

• “Make every move about the move — that one moment in time.”

• “There is never nothing going on. There are no ordinary moments.”

• “Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up..”

• “It is the journey that gives us happiness, not the destination.”

• “Death isn’t sad. The sad thing is: most people don’t live at all.”

• “Where are you? Here. What time is it? Now. Who are you? This moment.”

• “Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses.”

• “Don’t fall into the trap — If only I had this, I’d be … If only … , I’d get to be happy.”

• “The ones who are hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most.”

• “Knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Knowledge is knowing, Wisdom is doing.”

• “A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does.”

• “People are not their thoughts, they think they are, and it brings them all kinds of sadness.”

• “There is no better, you will never be better. Same way you’ll never be less than anybody else.”

• “I want you to stop gathering information from the outside and start gathering it from the inside.”

• “Habit is the problem. All you need to do is be conscious about your choices and be responsible for your actions.”

• “Every action has its price and its pleasure. Recognizing both sides a warrior becomes realistic and responsible for his actions.”

• “A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability. He’s about absolute vulnerability. That is the only true courage.”

• “Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs.”

• “If you don’t get what you want, you suffer. And even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.”

• “When you feel fear. Use the sword, take it up here and cut the mind to ribbons, slash through all those regrets and fears, anything else that lives in past or the future”

• “Life has three aspects: Paradox, Humor, and Change.

1. Paradox: Life is a mystery; don’t waste time figuring it out.
2. Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure
3. Change: Know that nothing stays the same.”