Courtesy of Gretchen Rubin Moment of Happiness
A vase stood in the heart of the house, alabaster, smooth, cold, holding the still, distilled essence of emptiness, silence.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Between the Acts
I had spent my whole life trying to fit in, but it would take the rest of my life to realize that some men are just meant to stand out.
CHARLES M. BLOW
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
“Always remember why you love to dance. Don’t be afraid to show your joy for dance in class or rehearsal, or to share it with the audience.”
Finn Duggan
One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
IRIS MURDOCH
The Sea, The Sea
A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
An Autobiography
Even now, at this late day, a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me—more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon.
E.B. WHITE
Letters of E. B. White
If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Stranger
Nature is a Haunted House – but Art – a House that tries to be haunted.
EMILY DICKINSON
letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson
One tree is like another tree, but not too much. One tulip is like the next tulip, but not altogether. More or less like people—a general outline, then the stunning individual strokes.
MARY OLIVER
Upstream: Selected Essays
Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.
SARAH BERNHARDT
Quoted in Madame Sarah by Cornelia Otis Skinner
All the colors burn up in the unseen higher vibrations of glory.
JOHN HOLLANDER
“Orange,” Selected Poetry
Very few things have so much effect on the feeling inside a room as the sun shining into it.
CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER
A Pattern Language
There is something magical about beginnings, about the challenges that come with territory not yet conquered, about being the underdog. I think I’d far rather stand at the beginning of something, looking up, rather than at a summit, looking down.
JO MALONE
My Story
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.
JAMES BALDWIN
Paris Review Interviews II
The best kind of laughter is laughter born of a shared memory.
MINDY KALING
Why Not Me?
The sign for the timeless is monochrome.
MIKE KELLEY
Foul Perfection: Essays and Criticism
I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organise and concentrate—or else get fragmented into bits.
RUMER GODDEN
A House with Four Rooms
There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,—not a grain more.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
“Autumnal Tints”
For the love of God and my sisters (so charitable toward me) I take care to appear happy and especially to be so.
ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX
Story of a Soul
I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you; either way, there it is, your past, a collection of people you used to be and things you used to do. Your past is the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in.
JAMAICA KINCAID
Lucy
One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past.
We won’t make ourselves more creative and productive by copying other people’s habits; we must know our own nature, and what habits serve us best.
What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.
GRETCHEN RUBIN
