The Meaning of A Story

The meaning of a story should go on expanding for the reader the more he thinks about it, but meaning cannot be captured in an interpretation. If teachers are in the habit of approaching a story as if it were a research problem for which any answer is believable so long as it is not obvious, then I think students will never learn to enjoy fiction. Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it.

Flannery O'Connor

A Few Hold On and Move On

It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of this vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential.

New York, May 1968,

Ayn Rand

Successful Communication

When people share their thoughts, they commonly listen to each other's opinions rather then throwing information to each other. In other words, successful communication depends on how well we listen, rather than how well we push our opinions on the person seated before us.

White,
Kenya Hara

Loathe Reality

When I look back on my life, it's not that I don't want to see things exactly when they happened, it's just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way, and truthfully the lie of it all was much more honest because I invented it. Clinical psychology tells us arguably that trauma is the ultimate killer. Memories are not recycled like atoms and particles in quantum physics, they can be lost forever. It's sort of like my past is an unfinished painting, and as the artist of that painting, I must fill in all the ugly holes and make it beautiful again.
It's not that I'm being dishonest. It's just that I loathe reality.

The opening line of Mary the Night,
Lady Gaga

Faith

Faith is a strange thing.
You believe in something for no reason, a complete trust.
You try to sustain it for no justification, it's irrational.
You tell yourself don't be stupid, save yourself from all the disappointments.
Then you realize... who are you kidding?
To have faith is a part of yourself.
You can't change it, you might never will.

It's Gone

One day you’re there.

And then all of the sudden, there’s less of you.

And you wonder where that part went... if it’s living somewhere outside of you.

And you keep thinking, ‘Maybe you’ll get it back.’

And then you realized, it’s just gone…

Peggy Olson,

End of season 2 dialogue with Pete Campbell

Mad Men

Distinction

‎"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west;

People create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."

The Buddha

Waiting for the Question

‎Everybody, in their lives, is really waiting for people to ask them question

So that they can be truthful about who they are and how they become who they are.

Marc Pachter

Creating Yourself

Life is not about finding yourself,

It's about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

Fearless Facing Dangers

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.

Rabindranath Tagore

Create a New Path

‎"If you are going down a road and don't like what's in front of you,
And look behind you and don't like what you see,
Get off the road.
Create a new path!"


Maya Angelou

Ask for What You Want

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

Maya Angelou

A Bitch

I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.

Madonna

Boring

‎Never fear being vulgar, just boring.

Diana Vreeland

How You Made People Feel

‎I've learned that people will forget what you said,

people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

Solving Problem

We can't solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Albert Einstein

Architecture is a Stop in Time

Architecture is a stop in time,

a philosophy written in the earth to mark the landscape.

Sverre Fehn

People Who Eat White Bread

People who eat white bread have no dream.

Diana Vreeland

Be Persistent

People may not believe in you but you must always believe in yourself.

Be persistent,

One day you'll prove them wrong.

Style

You gotta have style.

It helps you get up in the morning.

It's a way of life.

Without it you're nobody.

And I'm not talking about a lot of clothes.

Diana Vreeland