#iv

We never think lightly of those who walk with us on our uphill days. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#charity #friends #friendship #giving #kindness

I am the Wizard of Oz of housewives (in that I am both "Great and Terrible" and because I sometimes hide behind the curtains ↗

— Jenny Lawson

#humor #wizard-of-oz #humor

See, they say it’s ‘survival of the fittest’, but you and I really know that it’s ‘survival of the most heavily armed ↗

— Lia Habel

#survival #humor

Humor is a universal lanuage. ↗

— Joel Goodman

#language #universal #humor

He'd followed Dasha once before and remembered which door was hers. He knocked, peered inside, then jumped in and shut the door, quiet as brushing two feathers together. He smiled at his own stealth, then swaggered right into a chair, banging it against the wall. You oaf. He cut short his swagger and begin to move with exaggerated sneakiness. There was a certain pleasure in that, too. ↗

— Shannon Hale

#river-secrets #shannon-hale #humor

Joy, not sorrow. Laughter, not tears. Life, not death. Love, not blame. ↗

— Lisa Schroeder

#optimism #positivism #death

The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex. ↗

— John Osborne

#beliefs #careers #doing #first #give

Living is about clucking your tongue and enjoying the sound. ~Slater ↗

— Ted Dekker

#living #slater #humor

Jack," said Charles, "he's making up words again." "Yes," Jack replied, "but he's getting better at it, don't you think? ↗

— James A. Owen

#humor #humor

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul. For the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe that leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. ↗

— David Mitchell

#humanity #life-and-living #life