a handful of my favourite quotes and poems
and photos of the book I started keeping them in 1999
In 1999, I was 16 and in year 11. I went on my first overseas trip to New Zealand with my Mum and two younger brothers. I was working at the fast food chain Red Rooster, which got me addicted to pineapple fritters and enabled me to contribute to the holiday by paying for my airfares. Also, I began collecting quotes.
I got hold of any quote book I could find and poured over the pages. I grabbed myself a notebook, a special one that I knew needed to last me years to come—25 to date—and began writing them all down, along with a few of my own.
Here is that notebook, and below are a handful of photos from within it - deliciously old writing-filled photos, bursting with my youthful inspiration. Also a few snippets of pieces out of it.
Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the colour of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about your grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not. Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are. Life isn’t just about that. But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion. It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love. Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence. It’s about what you say and what you mean. It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have. Most of all, it is about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never have been achieved otherwise. These choices are what life is about.
Author Unknown
This is the inside cover of my notebook.
‘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, …
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;’
If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
‘…I would enjoy the feeling of "being in love" and not worry so much about how it works out.
I would know that it probably won't... but that something better will come along.
I wouldn't be afraid of acting like a kid.
I would be braver.
I would look for the good qualities in everyone and enjoy them for those.’
If I Knew Then What I Know Now...
KIMBERLY KIRBERGER
‘I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in human beings. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else - or brains even? - Oh gosh yes, brains is one of the least. You can be a lovely person without brains, absolutely lovely. Kindness - that simple word, to be kind - it covers everything to mind. If you’re kind that’s it.’
ROALD DAHL
‘The more you leave out - the more you highlight what you leave in.’
HENRY GREEN
‘When everything is gone, everything remains.’
THE MINIMALISTS
‘The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.’
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
‘A bell is no bell ‘till you ring it,
A song is no song ‘till you sing it,
And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay,
Love isn’t love ‘till you give it away.’
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN
These mountains that you are carrying, you’re supposed to climb.’
NAJWA ZEBIA
And in the back of my notebook, a photo from New Zealand and a photo of me I had taken post-divorce in Thailand as I began finding myself again but that’s a story for another day.
‘…And you begin to accept your defeats,
With your head up and your eyes ahead,
…And you accept that it doesn’t matter how good a person is,
She will hurt you once in a while,
And you need to forgive her for that.
…You learn that it doesn’t matter where you have reached,
But where you are going to.
But if you don’t know where you are going to,
Anywhere will do.
…Because it doesn’t matter how delicate and fragile the situation is,
There are always two sides.
…You learn that patience demands a lot of practice.
…You learn that we shall never tell a child that dreams are silly,
Very few things are so humiliating,
And it would be a tragedy if she believed in it.
You learn that when you are angry,
You have the right to be angry,
But this doesn’t give you the right to be cruel.
You discover that only because someone doesn’t love you the way you would like her to,
It doesn’t mean that this person doesn’t love you the most she can,
…And that life really has a value.
And you have value within the life.’
After A While
Veronica A. Shoffstall
Our past is embarrassing at times and inspiring at other times, but overall, it is about embracing all that we have already survived and often thrived through. You did that. You.
The most helpful way to support my writing is to share this post. Would you please forward this to someone who might also enjoy these words or share it on your facebook? Thank you. x
P.S. What are some of your favourite quotes and/or poems?