Mary Schmich Quotes & Sayings

Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. — Mary Schmich

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. — Mary Schmich

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. — Mary Schmich

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft — Mary Schmich

You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same. — Mary Schmich

Don't waste your time on jealousy ... — Mary Schmich

Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. — Mary Schmich

Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young — Mary Schmich

Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer. — Mary Schmich

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation. — Mary Schmich

Like many women my age, I am 28 years old. — Mary Schmich

Do not read beauty magazines. They only make you feel ugly. — Mary Schmich

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good. — Mary Schmich

In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. — Mary Schmich

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone. — Mary Schmich

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing. — Mary Schmich

Advice is a form of Nostalgia — Mary Schmich

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills. — Mary Schmich

Families are ecosystems. Each life grows in response to the lives around it — Mary Schmich

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. — Mary Schmich

The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them. — Mary Schmich

Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right. — Mary Schmich

For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation. — Mary Schmich

Every day each of us wakes up, reaches into drawers and closets, pulls out a costume for the day and proceeds to dress in a style that can only be called preposterous. — Mary Schmich

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. — Mary Schmich

You can figure out who you were by which movies you loved when. — Mary Schmich

Barbie is just a doll. — Mary Schmich

The soul-sucking activity of TV-watching feels better when it is done with other souls. — Mary Schmich

Unusual commencement advice: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen
would be it. — Mary Schmich

Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views. — Mary Schmich

Opening day. All you have to do is say the words and you feel the shutters thrown wide, the room air out, the light pour in. In baseball, no other day is so pure with possibility. No scores yet, no losses, no blame or disappointment. No hangover, at least until the game's over. — Mary Schmich

One thing you might want to learn before you attend the world's largest ukulele lesson is how to say ukulele. — Mary Schmich

On an average day, we allow ourselves the fiction that we own a piece of our workplace. That's part of what it takes to get the job done. Deeper down, we know it's all on loan. — Mary Schmich

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. — Mary Schmich

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. — Mary Schmich

Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York. — Mary Schmich

The first gay person I ever met was surely not the first gay person I ever met. — Mary Schmich

Books are like blankets, the mere sight of them around the house provides warmth and comfort. They are like mirrors, too, reflecting places I've been, phases I've been through, people I've loved or thought I did. — Mary Schmich

'The Hunger Games' isn't for everybody. But neither is 'Anna Karenina.' — Mary Schmich

TV happens. And once it's happened, it's gone. When it's gone, you move on, no tears, no tantrums, no videotape. — Mary Schmich