Karbo Quotes & Sayings

Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves. — Diana Princess Of Wales

CHAPTER XXIX THE SENATOR'S LETTER — Anthony Trollope

These days, we've gotten incredibly fussy. With our personal playlists, our complicated made-to-order half-caf, half-decaf lattes, our special mattresses that can adjust for each sleeper, our individually designed college curriculums, we've gotten out of the habit of making do with what's at hand. Part of living with abandon is giving oneself over to one's circumstances without any expectation that things are going to be to our liking anytime soon. We can hope that things will improve, but it shouldn't prevent us from doing what we've set out to do. Julia had an astonishing capacity to be content with what was in front of her, whether it be a cooking school run on spit and a string or a less than perfect hunk of meat. She made do and moved on and rarely regretted it. — Karen Karbo

Friendship intimacy calls for whoever is on the receiving end of the information to offer "hefty helpings of emotional expressiveness and unconditional support." Yet, as Karbo points out, they can't be too opinionated. So if I'm enraged that Matt canceled our Friday night plans, again, she better huff and puff and agree it was lame of him, but she would never say "He's such an ass, I've never liked him." Such are the unwritten rules of friendship. — Rachel Bertsche

O'Keefe is the poster child for doing exactly what you want, in the service of an abiding passion. — Karen Karbo

The Chanel aesthetic is like the force in Star Wars, surrounding, penetrating, and binding together the universe of fashion, now and forever. — Karen Karbo

Julia arrived at "just do it" as a personal credo long before Nike snapped it up. Nothing anyone thought about her could stop her. Imagine a life in which you're never too anything for anything. Never too old to go back and get that degree. Never too uncoordinated to cut loose on the dance floor. Never too wrong-of-body to wear that swimsuit and throw yourself into the waves. — Karen Karbo

I loved the show Lost, in part because the writers were so nimble in how they would take things from previous episodes, that probably weren't created with any intent towards a larger narrative, and they would get woven into narratives in a really elegant and exciting way. — Ed Helms

You know how it is. Every time you kiss someone else, in a way you always remember that very first time. — Breckin Meyer

A literary expert friend once told me that the way to teach your child to love and respect reading is not to read to them, but rather to refuse to allow yourself to be interrupted while you're reading. — Karen Karbo

Of course, no matter how Henry tried to rationalize what he had done, his survival depended upon his capacity for betrayal. He willingly turned on the world he knew and the men with whom he had been raised with the same nonchalance he had used in setting up a bookie joint or slipping a tail. For Henry Hill giving up the life was hard, but giving up his friends was easy. — Nicholas Pileggi

date at the top of the page was May 16, 1753. — Diana Gabaldon

Once in a great while, she was distressed by the way she looked. As she was rounding the bend to forty she would write to Avis DeVoto that whenever she read Vogue she "felt like a frump....but I suppose that is the purpose of all of it, to shame people out of their frumpery so they will go out and buy 48 pairs of red shoes, have a facial, pat themselves with deodorizers, buy a freezer, and put up the new crispy window curtains with a draped valence."
Julia was able to deconstruct the disingenuous motives that drive women's magazines with the ease she normally reserved for deboning a duck, seeing quite clearly that while ostensibly offering inspiration and useful advice, the stories and articles quietly pummel the reader's sense of self, the better to drive her into the arms of the advertisers. — Karen Karbo

Are you depressed or euphoric? The house, in its wisdom, seems to have taken advantage of your moments of euphoria to prepare itself to shelter you in your moments of depression. — Italo Calvino

A small room is enough; a small quantity of food is enough; a few clothes are enough; one lover, a very ordinary man — Rajneesh

Chanel and Boy "Arthur" Capel met sometime around 1905. — Karen Karbo

Old age. I don't know when it really starts, and I'm not interested in finding out. Julia pretty much ignored the whole thing, and that may be the only real lesson there is for the end of our days. Just pretend like it isn't happening, until you have no choice but to accept reality. If you're lucky, like Julia, you'll die peacefully in your sleep after having enjoyed a dinner of onion soup. — Karen Karbo

There are few things less stylish than a boring, self absorbed twit ... — Karen Karbo

Her secret? Loving her own life. Finding the things that came her way of immense interest and animating them. No matter what was going on, it was great to be her, starring in her own true-life adventure. — Karen Karbo

the natural animosity between those who slept and those who were stirring in the sleeping city. — Stefan Zweig

Your country is bigger than baseball. — Jerry Coleman

The truth about Chanel's bespoke femininity is that a woman can do or say whatever she wants as long as she's wearing pearls. — Karen Karbo

Allison Janney is amazing, and Anna Faris was a revelation to me. — Mimi Kennedy

Years later, when Julia was famous she would often receive letters from people who asked not simply how they might learn to cook. They already knew the answer: The owned her cookbooks, but they were yearning to know how they might become passionate about it. She always answered the same thing: Go to France and eat. — Karen Karbo

When we fixate on the worst in something, we render ourselves incapable of fixing anything ... But attend to the good in something - and we act towards the best in everything. — Ann Voskamp

Overdressing is the first cousin of trying too hard. — Karen Karbo

All of them thought Georgia was weird. Then and now, it takes nerve to be weird - and I mean genuinely out of step with everyone else, not hipster-weird, where you affect the weirdness embraced by everyone else at the coffee shop. — Karen Karbo

Persevering is not often simply a matter of working hard and refusing to quit; often, by trying again, failing again, and failing better, we inadvertently place ourselves in the way of luck. — Karen Karbo

I don't believe this. This is utter shit!" I yelled.
"Does it look like I'm lying?" Steven asked.
I rolled my eyes at his incredibly stupid question, "I don't know. Let me look at you with my x-ray vision to see through this stupid blindfold and I'll get back to you. — Sara Massa

A booby woos his mate with a story of abundance; a bee dances out a story of food. Whatever line we draw between instinct and awareness does not change that the story is there from the outset, long before there are poets to recite it or scribes to record it. So it is that what we still think of as our unique heritage, the thing that sets us apart, what the gods have given us, the magic moment of "Let there be light," is perhaps only a passage on a much longer journey, one that is primal beyond reckoning and that goes back to the very beginnings of life itself. — Nino Ricci

...behind every Guide Michelin chef there was a woman, usually a four foot cataract-ridden old granny from whom he'd filched his best recipes. — Karen Karbo

Expanding your notion of fun beyond a two-week vacation in Maui increases the chances you'll have more of it. — Karen Karbo

Writers are outsiders, and usually not by their own choosing. It's why they're writers. If they didn't feel alienated from human experience, they wouldn't feel so drawn to writing to make sense of their lives. It's not the outsider's facility for language that makes her a writer - many a student body president or homecoming queen can turn a phrase - but her ability to howl at the moon, on the page. — Karen Karbo

Had she been a more instinctive, "natural" cook, she might have felt less compelled to parse each recipe, to tackle each one as though getting it right were a matter of life and death. — Karen Karbo

...Chanel didn't start out with a mission statement, nor a corporate vision, nor a roadmap for success, nor timeline for achieving her goals, nor an action item list, nor any of those other high-falutin' concepts we associate with mega modern multinational success stories. — Karen Karbo

The first draft is for YOU, the writer; the second and subsequent drafts are for the reader. Trying to do both things at once - figuring out what we want to say, while also fashioning it for another human being to read - is the cause of writer's block. — Karen Karbo