Sonja Quotes & Sayings

To call the police is a really big deal because you don't snitch - that's the culture you grow up in. — Sonja Sohn

It was morning distilled, the sun rising on a quiet world, a mute witness. To Liz, it was both the oldest miraculous event, and the newest. This one belonged to her, and she to it. — Sonja Yoerg

It wasn't as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living. Grief is a strange thing. — Fredrik Backman

This is why Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leader in the scientific study of well-being, has written that she prefers the phrase "creation or construction of happiness" to the more popular "pursuit," since "research shows that it's in our power to fashion it for ourselves."13 — Shawn Achor

You always get that one person who hates you for absolutely no reason. — Sonja De Lange

It turns out that the process of working toward a goal, participating in a valued and challenging activity, is as important to well-being as its attainment. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else's future. And it wasn't as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living. — Fredrik Backman

Urban Fantasy is a subgenre pretty much designed for teenagers. It's pretty twee, but I adore it. I've been trying to come up with an Urban Fantasy comic ever since I'd read the Nancy Collins 'Sonja Blue' series years ago. — Ted Naifeh

just before Todd leaves for Greeley. These stomach pains also graduate to violent fevers to where he would be freezing and sweltering at the same time. Norma, a family friend, is looking after Colton at her home while Sonja is teaching a class at Imperial — Omar Elbaga

My own perception of cops was that they came into your neighborhood, they roughed up people that you loved for no reason and took them away. As a child you saw that. — Sonja Sohn

What is in your blood matters, but not as much as what is in your heart. — Sonja Yoerg

Those are the facts but not the truth, which does not even speak the same language. — Sonja Livingston

Trying to understand her teenage daughter's behavior was like trying to listen to a recording of a symphony whose volume vacillated unpredictably from barely audible to deafening. She couldn't hear the music, and all she wanted to do was leave the room. — Sonja Yoerg

If we can accept as true that life circumstances are not the keys to happiness, we'll be greatly empowered to pursue happiness for ourselves. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The past wasn't a guest you could ask to leave when you tired of its company. No, the past put up its feet and meant to stay. — Sonja Yoerg

It's hard to get money to support your [non-profit] organization if you have no evidence. It's very much like the acting business: You need an agent and manager so you can get a job to get resources, but you can't get an agent and a manager unless people see your work. — Sonja Sohn

All that is required to become an optimist is to have the goal and to practice it. The more you rehearse optimistic thoughts, the more 'natural' and 'ingrained' they will become. With time they will be part of you, and you will have made yourself into an altogether different person. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The world never puts a price on you higher than the one you put on yourself. — Sonja Henie

In a nutshell, the fountain of happiness can be found in how you behave, what you think, and what goals you set every day of your life. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

From Mooshum to Sonja, back and forth. They wouldn't look at each other. I'm gonna ask you to leave in a nice way, Joe. — Louise Erdrich

Further to this, Ove has the cat's resentful stares to contend with. Something in its eyes reminds him of the way Sonja used to look at him. — Fredrik Backman

I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing. — Sonja Henie

Thus the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

a shift in thinking' toward someone who has wronged you, 'such that your desire to harm that person has decreased and your desire to do him good (or to benefit your relationship) has increased.' Forgiveness, at a minimum, is a decision to let go of the desire for revenge and ill-will toward the person who wronged you. It may also include feelings of goodwill toward the other person. Forgiveness is also a natural resolution of
the grief process, which is the necessary acknowledgment of pain and loss. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

happiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Summer was down to the last lick of ice cream before the cone collapsed. — Sonja Yoerg

Death was a cold and endless place. At least life served vodka. — Sonja Yoerg

Follow the only nurse rule that can be applied to wearing a mini-skirt: it should be short enough to get to the point, and long enough to cover the important stuff, all while keeping you out of trouble. — Sonja Schwartzbach

Find a happy person, and you will find a project. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

You cannot shake hands with the Devil and not get sulphur on your sleeve. — Nancy A. Collins

Say a woman is more than the sum of her parts and I'll listen. Say she is more than fruit and blossom and branch and I'll nod my head yes. But say the body does not want and I will fall to the floor under the weight of a world that does not need the sweet talk of a heartbeat. — Sonja Livingston

Take this....haters. — Sonja De Lange

What is it, the difference between ordinary people and those with genius? Not just ordinary people either. Intelligent people, sensitive ones, exceptionally talented ones. Even people like Sonja who give everything and then more, who work harder than seems possible on the thing they love. — Anna Smaill

In a corner of her heart she imagined her compassion as kindling that could ignite not only her tender and guarded feelings for her mother, but also jump across the void and ignite her mother's feelings for her. — Sonja Yoerg

But Sonja was more freakish, more wondrously confounding than the one-armed guard; rather than limbs she had, somehow, amputated expectations. She didn't have a husband, or children, or a house to clean and care for. She was capable of the work, school, time, commitment, and everything else it took to run a hospital. So even if Sonja was curt and short-tempered, Havaa could forgive her these shortcomings, which were shortcomings only in that they were the opposite of what a woman was supposed to be. The thick, stern shell hid the defiance that was Sonja's life. — Anthony Marra

How she envied Diesel. He could love someone without knowing them. — Sonja Yoerg

Exercise may very well be the most effective instant happiness booster of all activities, — Sonja Lyubomirsky

I was hers in ways that those with loyalties of convenience cannot fathom. I loved her beyond words and clothes, and yes beyond even pain. The strangest of things is the way the hungry always return to the very same hand. The hand they know. The one that cannot give. — Sonja Livingston

Then she leans forward and whispers, "Give my love to Sonja and thank her for the loan," into his ear. — Fredrik Backman

People prone to joyful anticipation, skilled at obtaining pleasure from looking forward and imagining future happy events, are especially likely to be optimistic and to experience intense emotions. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The two men looked at each other for a moment. Then Sonja's father nodded. And Ove nodded curtly back. And then they rose to their feet, objective and determined, in the way two men might behave if they had just agreed to go and kill a third man. — Henning Koch

Why don't you just ease up a little bit, just be professional. Maybe you're over-investing - maybe you're caring a little too much. — Sonja Sohn

The generation of choice has left us no choices. As our world turns and we devour ourselves. We stare into the eyes of our children, a brilliant reflection of our image. And, we blame them for what we see. — Sonja Cassandra Perdue

Sleep: the stepchild of Death. — Nancy A. Collins

Maybe that's what marriage does, Helen thought. One day you're holding your breath lest a ghost fly up your nose and the next your coming home as married as your own mother. — Sonja Yoerg

Stick to your charms, they give the illusion that some beauty resides in you somewhere. Insecurity shows the real serpent you are and you are in this moment a venomous snake. — Faye Sonja

The Anne Rice books are a lot about infection. I read "Interview With the Vampire" a million times when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Also, [writing Gavriel's backstory] definitely came from those books: I sat down and reread them all and thought a lot about ... the way in which vampirism is pushing away from humanity in interesting ways, and creating something new from humanity. I imprinted on those books pretty hard.
Tanith Lee's "Sabella or the Blood Stone" was a big inspiration. I absolutely loved her books; when I was a kid, I wrote many bad Tanith Lee pastiches. Susie McKee Charnas' "The Vampire Tapestry." Poppy Z. Brite's "Lost Souls." Nancy Collins' "Sunglasses After Dark," which sounds like the most '80s title ever. It's about a vampire named Sonja Blue, and she goes around killing vampires. She's the only vampire who's half-alive. It's a really fun, blood-filled romp. It's very "Blade" before "Blade"
with a lady. — Holly Black

All my life I have wanted to skate, and all my life I have skated. — Sonja Henie

In all likelihood, Sonja had more academic journal subscriptions than friends. She could explain advanced calculus to her fifth-form algebra teacher but couldn't tell a joke to a boy at lunch. — Anthony Marra

[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception. The world can be a horrible, cruel place, and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant. These are both truths. There is not a halfway point; there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Without electricity or gas, the kitchen became a twilight mausoleum of dead appliances. One day, Natasha had an idea. Wearing latex gloves she found in Sonja's room, she scrubbed the innards of the oven and refrigerator with steel wool and bleach. She cut a broomstick to the width of the refrigerator compartment, jammed it in below the thermostat control, and pulled out the plastic shelves. In her bedroom, she gathered clothes from the floor in sweeping armfuls and deposited them before the refrigerator and the oven. Ever since she had begun working for the shuttle trader, her wardrobe exceeded her closet space. She hung silk evening dresses and cashmere sweaters on the broomstick bar, set folded jeans and blouses on the oven rack. When finished, she opened the doors to her new closet and bureau and felt pleased with her ingenuity. This is how you will survive, she told herself. You will turn the holes in your life into storage space. — Anthony Marra

Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it's not out there is that it's inside us. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

I realized that there was something internal that I could gain from pursuing this career as an actor. However, once I got into the business I just really abhorred what this career can drum up inside of a person. — Sonja Sohn

Last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stresses, crises, and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the poise and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

I was very academically inclined. But my inner life was in such turmoil. I'd go home and my home life was so miserable that it just felt like I was doing everything that I was supposed to do. I did all my chores, made really good grades, and I was excelling at school, but I wasn't happy. — Sonja Sohn

Forgiving people are less likely to be hateful, depressed, hostile, anxious, angry, and neurotic. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

people who regularly practice appreciation or gratitude - who, for example, "count their blessings" once a week over the course of one to twelve consecutive weeks or pen appreciation letters to people who've been kind and meaningful - become reliably happier and healthier, and remain happier for as long as six months after the experiment is over. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Made a wrong turn.ones or twice. — Sonja De Lange

If I can sell tickets to my movies like Red Sonja or Last Action Hero, you know I can sell just about anything. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I loved to write; in my late teens I had a 'zine. But it wasn't until I went back to school, later on in my 20s, that I actually saw that I had writing talent. — Sonja Sohn

Hiking's not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty. — Sonja Yoerg

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery, when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul. — Sonja Sohn

The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

It was the first time since the accident that he heard Sonja laughing. As if it were pouring out of her, without the slightest possibility of stopping it, like she was being wrestled to the ground by her own giggling. She laughed and laughed and laughed until the vowels were rolling across the walls and floors, as if they meant to do away with the laws of time and space. It made Ove feel as if his chest were slowly rising out of the ruins of a collapsed house after an earthquake. It gave his heart space to beat again. — Fredrik Backman

Beauty don't ask for attention. — Sonja De Lange

Life is a Curious Thing. Winter turns to spring and Parvaneh passes her driving test. Of teaches Adrian how to change tires. The kid may have bought a Toyota, but that doesn't mean he's entirely beyond help, Ove explains to Sonja when he visits her one Sunday in April. The he shows her some photographs of Parvaneh's little boy. Four months old and as fat as a seal pup. Patrick has tried to force one of those cell phone camera things on Ove, but he doesn't trust them. So he walks around with a thick wad of paper copies inside his wallet instead, held together by a rubber band. Shows everyone he meets. Even the people who work at the florist's, — Fredrik Backman

[Her father] never minded when there was nothing to shoot, and she never minded when there was. The harsh crack of the rifle and the limp rabbits and doves were the practical cost of the joy of those mornings. — Sonja Yoerg

The girl's face hollowed with resignation; it had been a long time, but Sonja remembered what it was to have that face, what it was to feel you were no brighter than the dumbest man, no stronger than the weakest boy, and with those ideas crowding your head no wonder subordination was the only inevitable outcome. — Anthony Marra

Don't play any game if you don't understand the rules no matter how nice winners trophy looks like — Sonja Smolec

My life is the longer version of Ice Princess. — Sonja De Lange

Excerpt from page 3 of "Wicked Washington"
Shelly Williams, the main character, speaking about her life:
And close and dangerous calls were almost my last name. Yet I felt as comfortable among the street hustlers, junkies, thieves, and criminals of D.C. as I did dining with my
white-collar, college-pedigreed friends over filet mignon, Maine lobster, and strawberry cheesecake at LaMermaid
Seafood Restaurant. — Sonja D. Jones

I studied acting for five years. I quit college at that point. You know, I go hard. When I know I'm supposed to go in a direction, I'm fully committed and I go all the way. Everything falls to the side and I'm all in. So I completely dove into acting even though I was almost 30. — Sonja Sohn

Write down your barrier thoughts, and then consider ways to reinterpret the situation. In the process, ask yourself questions like ... What else could this situation or experience mean? Can anything good come from it? Does it present any opportunities for me? What lessons can I learn and apply to the future? Did I develop any strengths as a result? — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Women's magazines will often ask me things like, 'All right, I need six five-minute happiness strategies.' And I say, well, there aren't any five-minute happiness strategies. This is something you have to do kind of every day for the rest of your life. Just like if you want to raise moral children or if you want to advance in your career. It's a goal you pursue your whole life. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Courage lays within easy reach of a child who knows nothing of how easily understanding can unravel, leaving a set of rules that apply to nothing, and an empty heart. — Sonja Yoerg

No one in our society needs to be told that exercise is good for us. Whether you are overweight or have a chronic illness or are a slim couch potato, you've probably heard or read this dictum countless times throughout your life. But has anyone told you-indeed, guaranteed you-that regular physical activity will make you happier? I swear by it. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

When we are fully mindful of the transience of things - an impending return home from an overseas adventure, a graduation, our child boarding the school bus for the first day of kindergarten, a close colleague changing jobs, a move to a new city - we are more likely to appreciate [be grateful for] and savor the remaining time that we do have. Although bittersweet experiences also make us sad, it is this sadness that prompts us, instead of taking it for granted, to come to appreciate the positive aspects of our vacation, colleague, or hometown; it's 'now or never.' — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The combination of rumination and negative mood is toxic. Research shows that people who ruminate while sad or distraught are likely to feel besieged, powerless, self-critical, pessimistic, and generally negatively biased. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present oriented. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

How fickle it is, memory - preferring some days to others, granting first a blue sky, offering next the sound of laughter, swelling our remembrances until a largeness seeps into the grain of things and memory itself becomes billowed and flapping. — Sonja Livingston

I use the term happiness to refer to the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

All those prayers said back in high school, the teenager I was having sex without protection, my period late, tears taking the place of breath, moments of high drama, saying, Please God Please God let me not be pregnant let my period come so I can finish high school oh please just this once and I will start showing up on time and doing my homework if you just this once have mercy God O God take pity and let my period come. Sitting on the edge of my bed, crying into my hands, so certain of my ability to bear children that everything in me played with it like fire, then prayed for its prevention. It's possible that I repeated it once too often, my anti-pregnancy chant, and the words seeped into the fabric of my body, making it into a shield. — Sonja Livingston

Ideals and opportunities and social theorizing are just fine, but if you must understand only one thing, it is this: a warm hand and words whispered into the ear are what we want. Paths that can be seen and followed and walked upon are what we most need.
...And in the end, the thing that feeds us, no matter how tenuous, is what we will reach for. — Sonja Livingston

But for her there was no possibility of a clear conscience, merely the weak absolution of honesty, of confession.
She could not buy into the cycle of sin and penance. She would always remember what she had done, and it would always sting. She would not be washed clean. — Sonja Yoerg

Even though the neighborhood I grew up in had some unhealthy elements, there was a caring there where you knew that you didn't want to get caught doing something wrong. There were bright spots in the neighborhood where I felt nurtured on a community level. — Sonja Sohn

Every day you have to renew your commitment. Some of the strategies should become habitual over time and not a huge effort. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

No one tells you how hard it is to be this cool. — Sonja Yoerg

There was an advertisement in the newspaper for a teaching position in a school with the worst reputation in town, with the sort of class that no qualified teacher with all the parts of her brain correctly screwed together would voluntarily face. It was attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder before attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder had been invented. "There's no hope for these boys and girls," the headmaster soberly explained in the interview. "This is not education, this is storage." Maybe Sonja understood how it felt to be described as such. The vacant position attracted only one applicant, and she got those boys and girls to read Shakespeare. — Fredrik Backman

The truest, best love had nothing to do with luck. Luck was faithless, and worth little. True love wasn't fancy and it wasn't magical, but simply true in every sense: honest, loyal and sure. — Sonja Yoerg

Alison's words were falling stones. Carole reached to grab them, to hold them, to put them in order. It was so hard, the stones so heavy. The words kept coming. Her daughter's face was before her, her lovely, dear face, and she could no nothing to help her. Not now, not while the voices were drowning her out, burying sense and decency and love. — Sonja Yoerg

If you're not happy today, then you won't be happy tomorrow unless you take things into your own hands and take action. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

In terms of having to uphold something, I don't need any added pressure. I need to be free in the work. — Sonja Sohn

Getting closer to someone doesn't necessarily clarify anything. It's like staring at an electron micrograph. You're closer but nothing's any simpler. — Sonja Yoerg

Even after Sonja graduated secondary school at the top of her class and matriculated to the city university biology department, their parents found more to love in Natasha. Sonja's gifts were too complex to be understood, and therefore less desirable. — Anthony Marra

Sonja used to say that Ove was "unforgiving." For instance, he refused to go back to the local bakery eight years after they gave him the wrong change when he bought pastries once at the end of the 1990s. Ove called it "having firm principles." They were never quite in agreement when it came to words and their meanings.
p. 239 — Fredrik Backman

She had gills while other people were breathing with lungs. There was, however, no point in dwelling on it, as it was too later to grow up differently. — Sonja Yoerg

These houses were thirty, forty years old. People must have died, had babies, gotten engaged, married, divorced, hurt each other in a thousand ways, reconciled and forgiven, passionately hated and desperately loved; if you abandoned a house whenever something significant happened, people would live in tents. This house had known life. — Sonja Condit

Everyone knew Sonja was destined for great things, but no one knew what to do with her until then. Even in academia, her natural habitat, she was an exotic species. Though her Russianness gave her certain dispensations, the idea that a young woman of any ethnicity could so excel in the hard sciences was a far-fetched fantasy. Their parents encouraged her at a distance. Neither understood the molecular formulas, electromagnetic fields, or anatomical minutiae that so captivated her, and so their support came by way of well-intentioned, inadequate generalities. Even after Sonja graduated secondary school at the top of her class and matriculated to the city university biology department, their parents found more to love in Natasha. Sonja's gifts were too complex to be understood, and therefore less desirable. Natasha was beautiful and charming. They didn't need MDs to know how to be proud of her. — Anthony Marra

It is equally important to investigate wellness as it is to study misery. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. In sum, our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effects of our set points and the circumstances in which we find themselves. If an unhappy person wants to experience interest, enthusiasm, contentment, peace, and joy, he or she can make it happen by learning the habits of a happy person. — Sonja Lyubomirsky