Top Ten tuesday: favorite quotes

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.  This week: Top Ten Quotes I Loved From Books I Read In The Past Year Or So.

"A study indicates that children laugh an average of four hundred times daily, adults only fifteen ... So what happens between childhood and maturity that damages our capacity for happiness?"

“Success in the arts is not measured in money 

or fame. It is about reaching that inner 

sanctum where the purest form of artistry takes

 place.” 

“To die, thought the lost boy in place of the 

Captain, will be an awfully big adventure."

“Everything that touches this earth leaves a 

special imprint, a unique mark that proves we

 exist in some way - no matter how invisible we

 may feel.” 

“But magic is like pizza: even when it's bad, it's

 pretty good.”

“Forgiveness doesn’t make one person better, 

or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just 

letting go. It’s turning back toward being what

 we really are.”

“The difference between a story and an essay

 is that the storyteller just wants to entertain 

the reader, while the essayist has been to 

graduate school.” 

“A life is not meant to be half lived. It is meant to be fully, wholly embraced. If you want to make a change in the world you have to be strong. You have to take chances. You have to persevere. Sometimes you must blindly go in a direction that you may be unsure of, but one that you have faith will lead you to the right place.”

"From the noisy, crowded gym at freshman orientation (day 1) to the noisy, crowded gym at graduation day (day 1,387), four years of high school seemed infinite.
On that first day they had no clue that one of them would experience the worst of losses (day 691), and another would watch her family break apart (day 38), and another would fall deeply and dangerously in love without buckling up for the ride (say 1,045). There would be a fatal car accident (day 123), a supreme betrayal (day 489), a kiss with the most unlikely person at a waterfall in the woods (day 943), and a walk along the Seine in Paris (day 352), where a long-held secret is definitely not discussed.

And then there would be that night (day 1,386) when it all unraveled. But back to day one. The beginning."

"In my head, I have a nice, quiet, normal job that involves me running my own business. I carry a briefcase around my office with important documents, I have a nice assistant who calls me boss, and people ask me questions—they ask for my advice because I matter! I’m important to them! I’m recognized as something more than a pretty face and a pair of legs. I have a brain and interests and thoughts about religion, and poverty, and economics. I’m not a miserable girl with a number attached to her chest, stripping her clothes off in a room full of people."