Last week, my friend Valerie did a ‘quote challenge’ on her blog and tagged me in it. You’re supposed to share three quotes over three days, but I’ve decided to just share a selection of my favourites here in a single post instead. Just something fun as I ruminate on the bigger, more serious things I want to blog about in the future (it’s been a hard week; lots of think-y thoughts. But more on that later!).

I actually have a notebook dedicated to quotes & song lyrics I love. I like to collect them up to read back; why not share them?

Here’s one: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” (Often attributed to Dr Seuss) – I needed to reread this one, today, even if I am a firm advocate of crying if/when you need to. Maybe it should be, ‘cry because it’s over, but smile too, because it happened.’

Yes, I think I like that more. Inside my quote book – right inside the front cover – I have one that says, “What’s the use of a good quote if you can’t change it?” I don’t know who wrote that. It could well have been me.

What else?

“You are always a little bit wrong,” – Hank Green.

Sadly, sadly true.

I lot of great quotes come from the Green brothers. It was John who said, “Truth resists simplicity,” which is another sadly true fact. (Ah, but if life were easy!)

John Green was also the person to say, “Maybe our favourite quotes say more about us than the stories and people we’re quoting.”

And isn’t that brilliant? Quotes about quotes are terribly meta, and I’m here for it!

Time for a little Oscar Wilde! He said, “Women are made to be loved, not understood,” which I like, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t try for the latter.

It was Brad Meltzer who said, “There’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood and understanding someone else,” which is 100% true and 50% of the reason I love my husband (the other 50% is his sense of humour and fantastic beach body).

Genius, apparently (according to EB White, at any rate) is “more often found in a cracked pot than a whole one.” Which I guess is the reason my husband loves me. I’m an excellent crackpot, firmly following the advice of Abraham Lincoln (“Whatever you are, be a good one.”).

And speaking of love. “Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own,” – Robert Heinlein.

But let’s go back to John Green for a moment, because he shared this and it needs repeating and repeating and being written on walls and tattooed on backsides: “You are helpful and you are loved and you are forgiven and you are not alone.”

…

take a deep breath, then go back and read that again.

Now leave, I’m done here and returning to my writing. As Frank Zappa said, “So many books, so little time!”