Your ship comes in because you’re the captain.

“I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

--Roger Ebert

“Despite whoever created it, it’s my world, & the only one I’ve got. Might as well make the best of it, right? Might as well have a little fun while I’m here. Or a lot of fun. Might be dead tomorrow.”

--Ellen Hopkins

“If there is no wind, row.”

--Unknown

“This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that … Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be.”

--Charles Bukowski

“So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.”

--Elizabeth Gilbert

“Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!”

--Dodie Smith, 'I Capture the Castle'

“I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.”

--Henry Rollins

“I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what’s happened to me.”

--Dave Eggers

“Society goes on telling you, “This is right, and that is wrong”—that is conscience. It becomes ingrained, implanted in you. You go on repeating it. That is worthless; that is not the real thing. The real thing is your own consciousness. It carries no ready-made answers about what is wrong and what is right, no. But immediately, in what-ever situation arises, it gives you light —you know immediately what to do”

--Osho

“I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, ‘This is what I believe. Finished.’ What I believe is alive and open to growth.”

--Madeleine L’Engle

“When I work hard for something, I don’t like people telling me, Oh you’re so lucky. I aint lucky. Your ship comes in because you’re the captain.”

--Patti Smith

“The things we hate about ourselves aren’t more real than things we like about ourselves.”

--Ellen Goodman

“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.”

--Sarah Kay

“To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.”

--Czeslaw Milosz, 'Learning'

“You only lose what you cling to.”

--Buddha