meaning of life

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"
- Darius Rucker

red cap

" ... you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

on acting awards

"Actors haven't got a thought in their stupid bed-head mini-brains. We must honour this guy - he pretended to be Bob Johnson. It's genius, I tell you! Put on these clothes, roll the cameras, say what we told you to say! Fantastic! Give this guy a huge golden trophy! Goddamn genius."
- Jerry Seinfeld  

fun

"We're all entitled to a joyful experience in life."
- Cyndi Lauper

anti-stuff

"80% of Millennials prefer experiences over possessions."

"Make haste slowly."

Benjamin Franklin

unselfconscious

"The more you care about your own decisions, the less you care about what others think."
- Miley Cyrus

the beauty you cannot see

"You don't have to play every note."
- Thelonious Monk to his band on "space"

advantaged head start

Could you have done it on your own?

‘To whom much is given, much will be required’" (Luke 12:48)

Train above the neck too

"For champions, it's 70% mental and 30% physical."
- Michael Johnson

on the virtues of the long game

"Sure metaphorically you got mobile faster. Didn't have to take the bus. I took public transportation longer, but as you were building quickly your Pinto, I was laboriously, methodically building a Rolls Royce."
- Deferred character formation gratification

gravitas

"Sleeping is difficult in space. No matter what you feel the same. On earth due to gravity, sitting down or reclining you're increasingly more comfortable, which signals your brain to fall asleep."
- Scott Kelly

YMCA is big deal

crisitunity

"Crises don't make heroes. Crisis reveals who you were before it happened."
- Dr. Phil

Greatest accomplishment?

"The team."
- Steve Jobs

Orwell not a fan

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

Full Rudyard Kipling "If" text here.

lonely

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.”

- Vincent van Gogh sold just one painting not to his brother during his lifetime. More recently, his works have gone at auction equal to the value of expensive fighter jets.

routine

"I do 500 situps per day, 5 days per week."
- Shemar Moore on his abs

party of one

"The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."
- Henrik Ibsen

on disaffected Trump voters

"If the economy is not going to work for me, I don't want it to work for anyone else."
- John Fetterman, Democratic Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania

Theory of Happiness

"... a quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest."
- Albert Einstein

setting expectations

"To learn something new, expect to fall on your face."
- Sebastian Thrun, formerly tenured Stanford professor and Google X chief

Galt is the Paris of Cambridge

Sarcastic and literal.

"just another card in the deck"

"I've never trusted happiness."
- Billy Bob Thornton

"I just push words around."

"We got to pry that singer loose."
- Rob Baker on acquiring Gordon Downie for his new band The Tragically Hip.

not little

"Before you succeed, you must learn to fail."
- Shaq who like Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school basketball team

nil desperandum

"You have to care about the outcome to be nervous."

- Alfonso Lincoln Ribeiro

sales save all sins

Business, political, interpersonal maxim.

embracing imperfection

"War between strengths and weaknesses."
- Greeks on heroism

superiority complex

"(Now) who could tell us what was fashionable, what was fun?"
- F. Scott Fitzgerald