Selected choices quotes

1. There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.

2. Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

3. Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose.

4. That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

5. There's not a single thing on offer in this all-too-temporary world for which you should ever sell your soul.

6. I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.

7. Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

8. Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

9. Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been.

10. Even if you're not enjoying the flight, it's futile to threaten to get out and walk.

11. I can no longer face life, so I've decided to go through the rest of it backwards.

12. Life can be very deep, but I'm trying to stay at the shallow end.

13. You can't stop progress, but you can help decide what is progress and what isn't.

14. I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot.

15. I love strange choices. I'm always interested in people who depart from what is expected of them and go into new territory.

16. Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club.

17. One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

18. Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West. More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

19. Eat in the dark the bargain that you purchased in the dusk.

20. There's a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind to be different from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very considerate.

21. Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.

22. How much of our lives could we buy back if we cherished our lives instead of our trinkets?

23. Neither. I did not bring my crown, and the last thing I would want to do is get into politics.

24. Never have children, only grandchildren.

25. Oh all the times I've listened, and all the times I've heard All the melodies I'm missing, and all the magic words, And all those potent voices, and the choices we had then, How I'd love to find we had that kind of choice again.

26. And all the trips you know you missed And all the lips you never kissed Cut through you like a knife. And now you see stretched out before thee Just another story of a life.

27. I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.

28. I was never interested in 'Teen Beat' like roles. I just wanted to work.

29. Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.

30. I've always done 'the wrong thing' and had a pretty wonderful time doing it.

31. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

32. Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?

33. He wanted to be a lawyer, couldn't afford it, so he started dealing to go to college - good intention.

34. If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

35. How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.

36. Never cut what you can untie.

37. Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

38. There's often more than one correct thing. There's often more than one right thing. There's often more than one obvious thing.

39. Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

40. At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

41. Money. You don't know where it's been, but you put it where your mouth is. And it talks.

42. No matter how love-sick a woman is, she shouldn't take the first pill that comes along.

43. You see, she was gonna be an actress And I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, And I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, Inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, Taking tips, and getting stoned, I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

44. We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices: Government has to make those choices for people.

45. I always wanted to be some kind of writer or newspaper reporter. But after college... I did other things.

46. 18th September, 1970; Jimi Hendrix dies. I'm still on the football team when I get the news. So I take my helmet off and confront the coach to tell him I'm quitting the team. In a moment of brilliance he gives me one look and says 'OK'.

47. Hay que tener cuidado al elegir a los enemigos porque uno termina pareciendose a ellos.

48. 'It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.' '

49. 'The only film I ever made for money was something called Music From Another Room, which I really didn't like.'

50. I've been married three times- and each time I married the right person.

51. If at first you don't succeed, give it up. It isn't worth the pain.

52. 'First of all, I choose the great [roles], and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.'

53. As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you- the first time around.

54. Neither have they hearts to stay, Nor wit enough to run away.

55. He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

56. Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.

57. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

58. I'd like to stand up for the rights of people who put everything on their burger -- chutney, mustard, pickle, mustard pickle, tomato sauce... It is common knowledge in my family that I can't tell the difference between a veggie burger and a meat one, because the ratio of burger to pickles is so high.

59. If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

60. No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

61. The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.

62. 'As a woman, you have to choose between your fanny or your face. I chose my face.'

63. Now, there are people who say to me 'Why did you have anything to do with her,' - that's one fact. And there are people who say to her, 'Why did you have anything to do with him,' - that's another fact. Apart from that, both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets - neither of us have any. Look here - I believe without question, or have the certain knowledge, that she loves me. I believe without question, or have the certain knowledge, that I love her. It has been sincerely meant. But has it also been foolish, etc? Perhaps, if you like - but aren't the wise ones, those who never do anything foolish, even more foolish in my eyes than I am in theirs?

64. There was a time when I really was going to give up acting... Right after Foxfire. I was trying to find characters with a certain strength and things going on, but I was always disappointed. Wallace was the first thing I did where I felt their ideas were better than mine.

65. Every man got a right to decide his own destiny.

66. To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner. To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to spend or waste, and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.

67. You can be married and bored, or single and lonely. Ain't no happiness nowhere.

68. Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.

69. Man makes a death which Nature never made.

70. The great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. The things that have really made me miss my train have always been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in the least afraid. [Pg. 61.]

71. Women who insist on having the same options as men would do well to consider the option of being the strong, silent type.

72. Sometimes one bad decision can mess up your life. We seal our fate with the choices we make. But don't give a second thought to the chances we take... Surely, you say, it's not as bad as you make it sound. If we make a mistake, you can always turn it back around. Get back on the straight and narrow -- When I'm through having all my fun . . . We seal our fate with the choices we make . . .

73. I've been offered a lot of things that celebrities do that I wouldn't do -- like perfumes, lines of clothing and this that and the other. But this [children's book] is right up my alley.

74. Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise-when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter.

75. I don't know much about morality and that, but there is this: It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary.

76. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. (p. 18)

77. It's important to me that I don't get trapped in the whole teen scene because I feel that you can get lost in those kind of movies, and they aren't really about the actors; they're about the selling of the concept, and how much money it makes. So I just try to choose the scripts that have the best characters for myself, or would be the most challenging, or fun.

78. There is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime. When your eyes are blind with tears, but your heart can see: another life, another galaxy.

79. In me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on.

80. When you get to a fork in the road, take it.

81. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

82. I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.

83. History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

84. That's the thing about your destiny: how are you supposed to know it when it arrives? How are you supposed to recognise it from the random life?

85. I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits.

86. Children, all your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate... I choose love.

87. I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls' basketball. Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

88. I don't have any children but if I had a baby I would have to name it so I'd buy a 'baby naming book'. Or I would invite somebody over who had a cast on.

89. Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced--because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.

90. I'd rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel.

91. Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.

92. They didn't have to believe in you. They didn't have to choose to die. But they didn't know that's what they was choosing They knew. We always know. We don't admit it to ourselves, not until the very moment of death, but in that moment, we see all the life before us and we understand how we chose, every day of our lives, the manner of our death

93. The great forces of history were real, after a fashion. But when you examined them closely, those great forces always came down to the dreams and hungers and judgments of individuals. The choices they made were real. They mattered. Atlantis

94. A little wine sometimes. Spirits are bad, alcohol wrong. Herb does grow.

95. follow no path all paths lead where truth is here

96. Who is Gloria Estefan today? I'm very fulfilled as a woman. I've been able to have a wonderful family life, a fantastic career. I have a lot of good friends around me. My family has been my grounding point, and rooted me deeply to the earth. . . I'm very happy. I've done everything I ever wanted to do. The key to me was -- I told my husband when we were in our 20s -- I'm going to work really hard, so one day I won't have to work so hard. And to me what that was, was having choices. And I do have choices now -- and I have take full advantage of that. It's important for me now to be here for my little girl [Emily, age 12]. My son is full grown -- and I know have quickly that goes. So, I'm balancing being a mother -- which to me is the most important role I have on this earth -- and still being creative, writing -- which is what I love to do. So, I've been able to branch out into not just writing songs like you have heard through the years -- but writing children's books, writing a screenplay. But at my core that's what I am: a writer. And that's what I enjoy doing behind the scenes: writing the songs for albums, recording it. And that's why you have seen me take more of a back seat to being the center of attention, and being out on tour and doing that kind of thing. I've stepped up a lot of my charity work. This year, the five concerts I did were all for charity: different ones and my own foundation. So, that's becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life -- as I wanted it to be. And [I keep] just growing and evolving.

97. I have many times resigned myself to never finding a true way out. But a new hope always emerges telling me that it is not yet too late for all of us to take stock and make a decision. I was brought up to believe in free will.

98. Do not choose for your wife any woman you would not choose as your friend if she were a man.

99. I don't have any idea what to order, so I talk to a few of the folks milling around outside. I think I've got it straight, but then I go inside and find a factory that would make Willy Wonka blush. I'm lost in a sea of possibilities.

100. As Jerry Seinfeld once said, 'Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.' But I have often wanted to take the road less traveled simply because it was.