World Best Small Quotes & Sayings

If you are working on a short story for a small online press, don't try to write a serious, world-changing, add-this-to-the-literary-canon masterpiece. Do your best work, but keep it all in perspective. Save the stress for when it is really called for, like facing a two-week deadline to rewrite a novel for a major house. — Victoria Lynn Schmidt

I was a 36C or D, and at 5' 1', I knew that being a small person with big boobs standing in front of an audience was not going to be easy. It would be really hard to get people to pay attention to me without mocking me. Getting a breast reduction to prepare for my career was no different from people who work to get good grades to get into a good college to get into a good graduate school to get a good job. I went down to a B cup, and it was the best thing in the whole world. — Janeane Garofalo

The things I do, I do from the heart and out of love and respect for our planet and all living things. And I draw my courage from my love for justice and truth, and I calm my fears by comforting those who are more scared than me. And I try to do my best to make the world a better place, one small action at a time, as good as I can. — Q'orianka Kilcher

And then . . . we're going to get in my car."
I waited for him to elaborate on a destination. "And?"
He gently kissed the nape of my neck. "What do you think?"
I couldn't help a small gasp of delight. "Oh, wow."
"I know, right? I was racking my brain for the best present ever, and then I realized that nothing was going to rock your world more than you and me in your favorite place in the entire world."
I swallowed. "I'm kind of embarrassed at how excited I am about that." Never had I guessed my love of cars would play a role in my sex life. Eddie was right. Something had happened to me.
"It's okay, Sage. We've all got our turn-ons."
"You kind of ruined the surprise, though."
"Nah. It's part of the gift: you getting to think about it for the next three days. — Richelle Mead

Granted that I know little of my real self, still, I am the best evidence for myself. And though, when I have quitted this world, it will matter nothing to me what people say of me, up to the moment of death we should strive to leave behind us something which can either Comfort, Amuse, Instruct, or Benefit the living; and though I cannot do either, execpt in a small degree, even that little should be given. — Henry Morton Stanley

The best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted in a characteristically pungent remark, that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness. Love and work enable each of us to explore a small corner of the world and to come to accept it on its own terms. But our society tends either to devalue small comforts or else to expect too much of them. Our standards of "creative, meaningful work" are too exalted to survive disappointment. Our ideal of "true romance" puts an impossible burden on personal relationships. We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves. — Christopher Lasch

After the war in Afghanistan, Anna [Wintour, editor of Vogue], deciding to save the world one hair-roller at a time, thought the best way to help the women in this beleaguered country was to start a small beauty school in Kabul, where aid workers could get their roots done. Vanity Fair, edited by Bush-basher Graydon Carter, cheered her great humanitarian effort. — Myrna Blyth

But imagine if we were the only people left. The last men on earth. I'd be the best golfer in the world right now. You'd be the only priest. And Ghost would be the only Sikh. Imagine that. A four-hundred-year religion terminating in a dope-head grease monkey."
"I thought you liked the bloke."
"I do. But think about it. All the people that made you feel worthless and small down the years. The bullies and bosses. All gone. It's exhilarating, if you think about it. Freedom from other people's expectations. We can finally start living for ourselves. — Adam Baker

The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We'd just make small talk, play soccer together. When something bothered me, I didn't talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that's just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own. — Haruki Murakami

Too many people in this world think small is the best they can do. Not you, Libby Strout. You weren't born for small! You don't know how to do small! Small is not in you! — Jennifer Niven

What a great treasure can be hidden in a small, selected library! A company of the wisest and the most deserving people from all the civilized countries of the world, for thousands of years, can make the results of their studies and their wisdom available to us. The thought which they might not even reveal to their best friends is written here in clear words for us, people from another century. Yes, we should be grateful for the best books, for the best spiritual achievements in our lives. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON — Leo Tolstoy

I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food (as the Ascian would have said) are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own - hard for me, at least. — Gene Wolfe

We are wolves, which are wild dogs, and this is our place in the city. We are small and our house is small on our small urban street. We can see the city and the train line and it's beautiful in its own dangerous way. Dangerous because it's shared and taken and fought for.
That's the best way I can put it, and thinking about it, when I walk past the tiny houses on our street, I wonder about the stories inside them. I wonder hard, because houses must have walls and rooftops for a reason. My only query is the windows. Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out? — Markus Zusak

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun. But I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world. — John Darnielle

The world is full of small ignorances. We must all do our best to ignore them and thereby keep them small, don't you think — Helen Simonson

For I am inclined to believe that my beloved Arthur of the future is sitting at this very moment among his learned freinds, in the Combination Room of the College of Life, and that they are thinking away in there for all they are worth, about the best means to help our curious species: and I for one hope that some day, when not only England but the World has need of them, and when it is ready to listen to reason, if it ever is, they will issue forth from their rath in joy and power: and then perhaps, they will give us happiness in the world once more and chivalry, and the old medieval blessing of certain simple people - who tried, at any rate, in their own small way, to still the ancient brutal dream of Attila the Hun. — T.H. White

I live in a world in which 40 men control wealth equal to that of nearly 80 countries, where to maintain their hegemony, countless acts of mayhem and massacre must occur every day. This is the reality that forms and reforms my days as it does those of all people on this hapless planet. I do not think any more that writing - mine or another's - can change the world. Perhaps in their small way, writers can answer for those who are voiceless in their extreme deprivation and suffering, but at best, in the very smallest scheme, writing can provide a moment of grace, both for her who writes and him who reads, in a very dark world. — Cecile Pineda

The final stretch of the drive ended at a small cottage nestled in a grove of ancient live oaks. The weathered structure , with chipping paint and shutters that had begun to blacken at the edges, was fronted by a small stone porch framed by white columns. Over the years, one of the columns had become enshrouded in vines, which climbed toward the roof. A metal chair sat near the edge, and at one corner of the porch, adding color to the world of green, was a small pot of blossoming geraniums. The Best of Me — Nicholas Sparks

This savoring of life is no small thing. The element of wonder is almost lost today with the onslaught of the media and gadgets of our noisy world. To let a child lose it is to make him blind and deaf to the best of life. — Gladys M. Hunt

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either
but right through every human heart
and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I consider myself one of a very small handful of drivers in the world that are top drivers. The best one? I don't think anybody can say they're the best one because, from one week to the next, you can be on form or off form a little bit. — Nigel Mansell

The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea. — Kenneth Grahame

Lying flat, the small mound of their child nearly disappeared,with only a palm-sized hardness palpable below her navel. Darcy murmured nonsense over this evidence of their love, tickling Lizzy's skin so that she giggled and squirmed.
"What are you saying to him, love?"
"I am informing him that he has been gifted to the very best mother in the entire world. Also, I am reintroducing myself and thanking him for finally allowing me to feel him. If need be, I shall squeeze him several times a day. He can kick me whenever the whim takes him!" He glanced up into her mirth-filled face. — Sharon Lathan

Believing in the second coming itself is anything but arrogant. The whole point of it is to insist, over against not only the wider pagan world, but against all self-delusion or pretension within the church, that Jesus remains sovereign and will return at last to put everything right. This putting right (the biblical word for it is "justice") is the sort of sigh-of-relief event that the whole world, at its best and at many other times too, longs for most deeply. All sorts of things are out of joint, both on a large and a small scale, in the world; and God the creator will put them straight. All sorts of things are still going wrong, corrupting the lives of human beings and the larger life of the environment, the planet itself; God the creator will put them right. All sorts of things are still wrong with us, Jesus's followers; Jesus, when he comes, will put us right as well. That may not be comfortable, but it's what we need. — N. T. Wright

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. — Atul Gawande

easier question to answer. "Who wouldn't be? This is New Riviera, the paradise planet, the best of Mother Earth concentrated and then spread like a fine glaze on an entire world instead of just a small part of it. — Alan Dean Foster

I'm learning to practice gratitude for a healthy body, even if it's rounder than I'd like it to be. I'm learning to take up all the space I need, literally and figuratively, even though we live in a world that wants women to be tiny and quiet. To feed one's body, to admit one's hunger, to look one's appetite straight in the eye without fear or shame - this is controversial work in our culture. Part of being a Christian means practicing grace in all sorts of big and small and daily ways, and my body gives me the opportunity to demonstrate grace, to make peace with imperfection every time I see myself in the mirror. On my best days, I practice grace and patience with myself, knowing that I can't extend grace and patience if I haven't tasted it. — Shauna Niequist

But what Liberty would remember best was the feel of his own small hand gathered in the warm, comforting grip of the man, those times alone when all of Thatcher's potent attention was concentrated on his son, as something inside Liberty always insisted, occasionally to contrary evidence that it should be, their trips together, their talks, the information about the sorry state of the world Thatcher shared reluctantly, almost sadly, with his son and heir out of a conviction that I do not enjoy having to tell you these things, but it is important you hear this news, no matter how distasteful, because, unfortunately, it is the truth, whereas it is lies and the promulgation of lies that will make you and the people in your life sick. — Stephen Wright

Brian Myers takes a fresh approach. He largely ignores what the regime tells the outside world about itself, but concentrates instead on what North Koreans themselves are supposed to believe, paying special attention to the North Korean narratives and mass culture, including movies and television shows. ( ... ) There are few books that can give the world a peek into the Hermit Kingdom. The Cleanest Race provides a reason to care about how those in North Korea see themselves and the West. It is possibly the best addition to that small library. — Andrei Lankov

I watched Leo and I realized that he also knew how it felt to be different. To want big things in a very small town. To get made fun of. He wasn't as different as I was. But he also wasn't one of those lucky people who fit in all the time. And I thought of the first time I worked with him, what I'd seen. He did like the world - that was the thing about him that I liked the best - but the world didn't always like him back. — Ally Condie

With those shared personal stories and our own valued experiences we all, sometimes unknowingly, have a unique quality to impress vast and contrasting individual footprints onto this world. You may not relate to me as a drag queen, or even a gay man for that matter. However if you take away that small portion of my life, you'll soon discover that I'm just like someone who's already a part of your life, that you're close to. First and foremost, I am someone's son, someone's best friend, someone's partner or someone who you may perhaps meet on the street one day, extending his hand to you when you need it the most, without judgment or hatred. — Skye High

I saw that I had forgotten how beautiful the drive to Thunder Bay was; the towering sighing groves of fragrant Norway pines, the broad expanses of clean white sand, the sea gulls, always the endlessly wheeling sea gulls; an occasional bald eagle seeming bent on soaring straight up to heaven; the intermittent craggy and pine-clad granite or sandstone hills, sometimes rising gauntly to the dignity of small mountains, then again, sudden stretches of sand or more majestic Norway pines -- and always, of course, the vast glittering heaving lake, the world's largest inland sea, as treacherous and deceitful as a spurned woman, either caressing or raging at the shore, more often turbulent than not, but today on its best company manners, presenting the falsely placid aspect of a mill pond. — Robert Traver

Give other Christians permission to be different from you. You're not the only Christ-follower in the world, and neither are you the most committed. Your way of loving Jesus is neither the only way for the best. If you don't know that, your Christian world is way too small. — Will Davis Jr.

There's so much wonder in the world, but instead of giving a damn, and taking the time to come to the realization that we are all very, very, small in a very, very miniature place, we like to pretend we are the alphas of the whole universe. We like to make ourselves feel big. And we each like to make our way seem like the best way, and our hurts seem like the biggest hurts, when really, we are nothing more than a tiny burning dot that makes up a part of the giant sky. A tiny dot that no one would even notice was missing. A tiny dot, that will soon enough be replaced by another speck which thinks it's more important than it actually is. I just wish people would sometimes stop fighting about stupid mundane things like race, sexual orientation, and reality television. I wish they would remember how small they are and take five minutes a day to look up to the sky and breathe." "Logan? — Brittainy C. Cherry

Larson had been putting up a front like he wasn't listening, but hearing that last statement from Owen made him speak up. "It's not about that," he asserted.
"It has to be," Owen disagreed. "How else am I supposed to define myself?"
"Why do you have to have a definition? A label isn't gonna make you feel any better about yourself or this situation. Stop trying to put yourself in one group or the other. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me!" Owen challenged. "My whole world has been flipped upside down thanks to you! Am I just supposed to sit back and accept that?"
Larson was beginning to boil over with repugnance. "Yes! Because that's what happens!" He was trying as hard a he could not to scream. "Things change and sometimes there's nothing we can do about it. Life sucks. Deal with it! That's what I'm doing. I'm not doing it in the best way, but I'm doing it. I'm dealing with that fact that you left me. — Megan Duke

The Need to Read
"Reading books remains one of the best ways to engage with the world, become a better person and understand life's questions, big and small. — Will Schwalbe

What matters is the character of ... stereotypes, and the gullibility with which we employ them. And these in the end depend upon ... our philosophy of life. If in that philosophy we assume that the world is codified according to a code which we possess, we are likely to make our reports of what is going on describe a world run by our code. But if our philosophy tells us that each man is only a small part of the world, that his intelligence catches at best only phases and aspects in a coarse net of ideas, then, when we use our stereotypes, we tend to know that they are only stereotypes, to hold them lightly, to modify them gladly. We tend, also, to realize more and more clearly when our ideas started, where they started, how they came to us, why we accepted them. All useful history is antiseptic in this fashion. It enables us to know what fairy tale, what school book, what tradition, what novel, play, picture, phrase, planted one preconception in this mind, another in that mind. — Walter Lippmann

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

you were to ask Christians around the world what God wants from the people he has saved, most would probably answer "obedience." There is great truth in that answer, but it is not enough. If the sovereign God's primary goal in sanctifying believers is simply to make us more holy, it is hard to explain why most of us make only "small beginnings" on the road to personal holiness in this life, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it (see Catechism Q. 113). In reality, God wants something much more precious in our lives than mere outward conformity to his will. After all, obedience is tricky business and can be confusing to us. We can be obedient outwardly while sinning wildly on the inside, as the example of the Pharisees makes clear. In fact, many of my worst sins have been committed in the context of my best obedience. — Barbara R. Duguid

In a 'wheat and tares' world, how unusually blessed faithful members are to have the precious and constant gift of the Holy Ghost with reminders of what is right and of the covenants we have made. 'For behold, ... the Holy Ghost ... will show unto you all things what ye should do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever the decibels of decadence, these need not overwhelm the still, small voice! Some of the best sermons we will ever hear will be thus prompted from the pulpit of memory - to an audience of one! — Neal A. Maxwell

Calling someone equally as anxious on the phone makes you feel less alone. Sometimes the best thing to hear is not "Don't worry, it's going to be okay" but actually "Tell me about it! The whole world is going to explode and I haven't slept for weeks. Now let me tell you about my specific fears of small boats and big businesses! — Amy Poehler

Science is international: the best scientists can come from anywhere; they can come from next door, or they can come from a small village in a country anywhere in the world - we need to make it easier. — John O'Keefe

In that small [time] most greatly lived this star of England:
Fortune made his sword, By which the world's best garden he achiev'd
And left it to his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
of France and England did this King succeed;
Whose state so many of had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed. — William Shakespeare

Quillonians were a reclusive race, proud, prone to drama, and violent when cornered. A couple of them had stayed at my parents' inn, and as long as everything went their way, they were perfectly cordial, but the moment any small problem appeared, they would start putting exclamation marks at the end of all their sentences. My mother didn't like dealing with them. She was very practical. If you brought a problem to her, she'd take it apart and figure out how best to resolve it. From what I remembered, Quillonians didn't always want their problems resolved. They wanted a chance to shake their clawed fists at the sky, invoke their gods, and act as if the world was ending. — Ilona Andrews

One of the best tricks a garden plays is that you never quite remember how it's going to be, that first day after winter has gone, when you go outside and can stay outside all day fiddling with jobs that aren't pressing enough to weigh heavily but will nevertheless pay dividends. A garden is made up of a thousand small inventions, but each small act is a defence (defiance even) against a world without anchors or safe harbours. — Anna Pavord

The day of parochialism in sports is over. The world is too small for what people like to call 'the good old days.' Fans want the best, wherever they come from. — Mario Andretti

If God has given you but a small portion of the world, yet if you are godly He has promised never to forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Providence has ordered that condition for you which is really best for your eternal good. If you had more of the world than you have, your heads and hearts might not be able to manage it to your advantage. — John Flavel

It was called 'We Wear the Mask', by Paul Laurence Dunbar. I transcribed the first stanza and then started jotting down my reaction to it.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

I used to wear masks so subtle I barely noticed them. A compliment to my mother after a dismal meal, a smile at my best friend when she sang out of tune, a forced laugh at my uncle's bad jokes. I wore small masks that came and went, like fleeting expressions.

I am stuck inside the mask I wear now. I want to rip it off. I want to show my scars to the world, to unveil the ugliness that breathes inside me. I want to be unashamed. I want to be unafraid. But every day the mask gets tighter, and I suffocate a little more.

I stopped writing. — Catherine Doyle

She was wary, trained to expect little of life, grateful for small pleasures, on her guard against promises, accustomed to making the best of things, in the habit of both wanting and not daring to want something more. Now Miracle Polish has come along, with its air of swagger and its taunting little whisper. Why not? it seemed to say. Why on earth not? But the mirrors that strengthened me, that filled me with new life, made Monica bristle. Did she feel that I preferred a false version of her, a glittering version, to the flesh-and-blood Monica with her Band-Aids and big knees and her burden of sorrows? What drew me was exactly the opposite. In the shining mirrors I saw the true Monica, the hidden Monica, the Monica buried beneath years of discouragement. Far from escaping into a world of polished illusions, I was able to see, in the depths of those mirrors, the world no longer darkened by diminishing hopes and fading dreams. There, all was clear, all was possible. — Steven Millhauser

Many years ago I had two small children, and I wanted to be able to be home when they got home from school. And I didn't like the direction journalism was taking. I thought if I could write books, I could work at home and have the best of both worlds. I wrote my first mystery while still working full time, and it didn't sell, but the next one did sell, so I quit my job for the world of fiction. Scary, but I've never regretted it for a single day. — Mary Kay Andrews

But if our philosophy tells us that each man is only a small part of the world, that his intelligence catches at best only phases and aspects in a coarse net of ideas, then, when we use our stereotypes, we tend to know that they are only stereotypes, to hold them lightly, to modify them gladly. We — Walter Lippmann

When you go to Best Buy and see a DVD of your movie, you think it's amazing. But then there's a whole other world that comes with it. It's a very small percent that's difficult, stalker-like, or annoying. Most people are just so gracious and so nice. As cheesy as it sounds, that's the thing that really keeps you going. — Adam Green

Perhaps most unsettling, Quigley reveals that real power operates behind the scenes, in secrecy, and with little to fear from so-called democratic elections. He proves that conspiracies, secret societies, and small, powerful networks of individuals are not only real; they're extremely effective at creating or destroying entire nations and shaping the world as a whole. We learn that "representative government" is, at best, a carefully managed con game. — Joseph Plummer

I felt inadequate to show him the way. I wanted my son to know much laughter and more love, to appreciate the grace of this world and the abiding mystery of it, to know the pleasure of small achievements, of trifles and of follies, to be always aware of the million wonderful little pictures in the big one ... we would have to find our way together. I loved him enough to endure any horror for him and to die that he might be spared. No matter how much you care for another person, however, you can't guarantee him a happy life, not with love, or money, not with sacrifice. You can only do your best - and pray for him. — Dean Koontz

World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. Randy has worked out a set of mental blueprints for a special cereal-eating spoon that will have a tube running down the handle and a little pump for the milk, so that you can spoon dry cereal up out of a bowl, hit a button with your thumb, and squirt milk into the bowl of the spoon even as you are introducing it into your mouth. The next best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of Cap'n Crunch in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which, in the case of Cap'n Crunch, takes about thirty seconds. — Neal Stephenson

With the world in the state it is, it's such a small, small thing. But I think the sad fact is that I'm about as happy in my life as you are in yours. I do my best for my mother - or, I tell myself that I do. Sometimes I seem to do nothing but scold her; we cross each other like a pair of scissors. She isn't happy, either. How could she be? I think she's simply marking time. Well, perhaps we all are. — Sarah Waters

What's the last thing you remember?" I ask instead. "Dancing." "You were at a bar, a nightclub? In Boston?" It takes her a bit, but finally, "Y-y-yes." "Did you drink too much?" A small hiccup I take to be yes. Kids, I think. We're all so young and fearless once. Nightclubs are nothing but a source of adventure. And a fourth, fifth, sixth rum runner the best idea in the world. I hated myself for my own stupidity, waking up in a coffin-size box. Minute after minute, day after day, so much time to do nothing but repent. And — Lisa Gardner

In school we learn that one of the best survival strategies is being part of a clique . With our friends, we create a little, tiny world with codes for conduct, morality, dress, communication, ethnicity and sexuality. We then learn to judge everyone else who is not part of our little world by the standards that are acceptable to us. This is called "divide and conquer," and happens to be exactly how male, white patriarchal society operates. When you choose not to see how you, yourself, perpetuate this social model, your world assuredly becomes-or remains-small, "safe," persnickety, judgmental and uninspiring. — Inga Muscio

Until they give me opportunity to write about matters that are not-me, the world must go on uninstructed and unreformed, and I can only do my best with the one small subject upon which I am allowed to discourse. — Helen Keller

Well, after that she would do her best. That was the only way. You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride. — Patrick Rothfuss

May I legitimize your gifts? Just because you don't get a pay stub doesn't mean you shrink back or play small or give it all up. Do your thing. Play your note. We are all watching and learning, moved. You are making the world kinder, more beautiful, wiser, funnier, richer, better. Give your gifts the same attention you would if it paid. (Or paid well! Some do our best, most meaningful work — Jen Hatmaker

The key thing is managed awareness of your role in the world and history. Think too much and you know you are nothing. Think just enough and you know you are small, but important to some. That's the best you can do. — Dave Eggers

In fact, if a museum were filled with all of the world's stolen artworks, it would be the most impressive collection ever created. It would have far more Baroque sculptures, much better Surrealist paintings, and the best Greek antiquities of any known institution. A gallery of stolen art would make the Louvre seem like a small-town gallery in comparison. Experts call it the Lost Museum. — Ulrich Boser