The Joy of Being Read To

The story of the human race

is the story of men and women

selling themselves short.

~Abraham Maslow

Dance Like Nobody's Watching

"You know you're dancing 

when tears of pain and happiness

blend in with your sweat" ~anonymous

Gather Ye People & Party

Call it a clan, call it a network,
call it a tribe, call it a family: 

Whatever you call it,
whoever you are, you need one.

~Jane Howard

Everything's Okay

“Some people wear their smile like a disguise. 

Those people who smile a lot, watch their eyes. 

I know 'cause I'm like that a lot. 

You think everything's ok, and it is . . . 

'till it's not.” ~Ani Difranco

May the sun shine all day long, everything go right and nothing wrong. May those you love bring love back to you, and may all the wishes you wish come true! ~Irish Blessing~

Come sit by my hearth...

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it.  Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way. ~Vincent van Gogh

Contemplative Creation of Beauty

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. ~Edgar Allan Poe

Life is GREEN!

As long as you're green, you're growing.
As soon as you're ripe, you start to rot.
~Ray Kroc

Fear Not the Toughness

Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face

conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.

~Greta Garbo

Life as a Conversation Piece

I can wear a hat or take it off, but either way it's a conversation piece.
~Hedda Hopper

More than Good Talk alone

A dog is not considered a good dog

because he is a good barker.

A 'man is not considered a good 'man

because he is a good talker.

~Buddha

Love What I Can't Expect

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected. ~Ben Okri

Blinded by the Light

In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being; he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison.  I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a "child of darkness" who is equal and complementary to the more obvious "child of light."  ~Laurens van der Pos

Take a Good Look at My Face

The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back. ~Dale Carnegie

Deep, Cleansing, Breaths

"Pain is such an uncomfortable feeling that even a tiny amount of it is enough to ruin every enjoyment." ~Will Rogers

Calm, Assertive Pack Leader?

Only humans choose the unbalanced to lead them. ~Cesar Millan

I am staunchly Anti-Compression Injurues

The great pleasure of a dog is that you make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, he will make a fool of himself too.
~ Samuel Butler

Through Hayden's Eyes

The sweetest sounds to mortals given
Are heard in Mother, Home, and Heaven.
~William Goldsmith Brown

Rest for the Weary

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me".

~Erma Bombeck

Gettin' to Know dem Bitches!

"Last time I really got to know myself it turned out there was a whole gang of bitches in there to deal with. I felt like the receptionist at a rehab center. They all had nice tits though, I gotta say."
— Christopher Moore

Pink Mercedes-Benz Polo Shirt

If we can't be free at least we can be cheap.

~Frank Zappa

Creator of the Universe

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, 

you must first create the universe.  

~Carl Sagan

Be My Own Hero

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.
~Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988), misquoting Sir Walter Scott

Spoonful of Sugar

It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.

~Virgil, Aeneid

Seek the Beauty

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

~Maryanne Williamson

More Laughter, Less Tears

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion.  I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."

~Kurt Vonnegut

Gumption; sans martyr

Take sips of this pure wine being poured.

Don't mind that you've been given a dirty cup.

~ Rumi

Faith, when things are fuzzy

"...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."

~~Neil Gaiman 

Start the New Year with a Dream

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

~~Neil Gaiman