Top Ten Quotes

01.     You’ve got to jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down. – Ray Bradbury

RIP Bradbury

02.     Live slow, die whenever.

I was actually shown a tattoo of a sloth with this text written on ribbons beneath it. It holds true.

03.     Here Be Dragons

I can't even remember where I heard this, but it references the end of old maps where the land was unknown. I doubt they actually used these on old maps, but to me it symbolizes the unknown and the risks people took to discover them.

04.     History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it. – Winston Churchill

Speaks for itself.

05.     If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – whereever you go. – Anothony Bourdain

Sometimes, when I'm travelling alone in exotic countries, I wish I was Anothony Bourdain. The man has class when travelling.

06.     The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt

It irks me a bit that the first time I ever heard this quote was due to Miley Cyrus getting a portion of it tattooed on her arm. I just find it to be so much better than "Aim for the moon..." and the other popular cliches, for I do not want to be a cold and timid soul.

07.     You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

I can't remember who wrote this originally. It may very well have been the person who wrote, 'We Bought a Zoo'. But then, the screenwriter or the author? The world may never know. Anyway, it's one of those to be used sparingly, lest the message become desensitized.

08.      They love their hair because they're not smart enough to love something more interesting. - John Green, Looking for Alaska

I aim to love my hair and interesting things equally. I'm over the stigma of girls being either pretty or smart. It's so degrading when a candid photo of a model appears in a mazagine reading a book, as though it's big news. Those eyes aren't just for flirting, folks.

09.      There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. - George Orwell, 1984

In my youth I was quite a 'stick to my guns' type. I'm afraid over the years I've been lulled into a state of compliance. Only rattle the cage when necessary and other junk like that.

10.      Death and destruction are at our shoulders ever second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front-wheel blow out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks everytime disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. - Hugh Laurie, The Gun Seller

This whole book is a work of art. It just makes sense.

Temporary

Have you ever wanted to go back to your childhood house and visit? See what they’ve done with the place, see how things have changed? Going back to work feels the same as what I assume that must be like. I’m only filling in so it’s quite like I’m just travelling through. Today is the first day I’ve been at the desk I used to call my own – well, for thirty hours out of the week. Answering the phones has been so deeply imbedded into my subconcous that most often I don’t even realize I’ve picked up the phone. I still remember a lot of the menial work, but something has changed. There’s been a shift in the air that makes everything just slightly different. Before I left I had my own account on the computer; the wallpaper being a picture I took of Australia. Since then that computer has been removed and with it every technological trace that I was ever here. The desk still lingers with bits of me: the compartmentalized office supply drawer, my handwriting on a folder or two, my typed phone list. With time, however, the drawer has become cramped, the file buried beneath it’s brothers, and the phone list is tattered and torn. Without getting too philisophical about how this metiphorically represents our lives here on earth / how we’re all just dust in the wind, etc. etc., it does have a way of making one feel quite…temporary.