Lisa Quenon > Lisa's Quotes

“What labels me, negates me.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“I wished my family would buy normal sliced white bread, the kind that went into toasters, like every other family I knew.”
― Anonymous

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”
― Maya Angelou

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.”
― Maya Angelou

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
― Maya Angelou

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
― Maya Angelou

“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
― Maya Angelou

“Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”
― Maya Angelou

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ”
― Maya Angelou

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”
― Maya Angelou

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
― Maya Angelou

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“I'd like to give every young teacher some good news. Teaching is a very easy job. Administrators will tell you what to do. You'll be given books and told chapters to assign the children. Veteran teachers will show you the correct way to fill out forms and have your classes line up.

And here's some more good news. If you do all of these things badly, they let you keep doing it. You can go home at three o'clock every day. You get about three months off a year. Teaching is a great gig.

However, if you care about what you're doing, it's one of the toughest jobs around.”
― Rafe Esquith, There Are No Shortcuts

“Most of us have participated in the trust exercise in which one person falls back and is caught by a peer. Even if the catch is made a hundred times in a row, the trust is broken forever if the friend lets you fall the next time as a joke. Even if he swears he is sorry and will never let you fall again, you can never fall back without a seed of doubt.”
― Rafe Esquith

“we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.”
― Randall Munroe, Xkcd: Volume 0

“The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics.”
― Randall Munroe

“But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.”
― Randall Munroe, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

“There’s no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word “NO” scrawled over and over in charred blood.”
― Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

“I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.”
― Randall Munroe

“They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.”
― Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

“A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.”
― Randall Munroe

“The US isn’t a perfect model of the world,”
― Randall Munroe, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

“Space is about 100 kilometers away. That’s far away—I wouldn’t want to climb a ladder to get there—but it isn’t that far away. If you’re in Sacramento, Seattle, Canberra, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Phnom Penh, Cairo, Beijing, central Japan, central Sri Lanka, or Portland, space is closer than the sea.”
― Randall Munroe, What If? 10th Anniversary Edition: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions