“If real self-improvement is what we’re after, why do we leave our reading until those few minutes before we shut off the lights and go to bed? Why do we block off eight to ten hours in the middle of the day to be at the office or to go to meetings but block out no time for thinking about the big questions? The average person somehow manages to squeeze in twenty-eight hours of television per week—but ask them if they had time to study philosophy, and they will probably tell you they’re too busy.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 323)
“Time was a waiting room—waiting for doctors, waiting for blood transfusions and test results, waiting for better days. I tried to focus on the preciousness of the present: the moments when I was well enough to walk around the oncology unit with my parents, the sound of Will’s voice as he read out loud to me each night before bed, the weekends when my brother came to visit from college—all of us together now, while it was still possible. But try as I might, I couldn’t help but feel an incipient grief and guilt as my thoughts turned, inevitably, to what would happen to Will and my family if I didn’t survive.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 91)
“Living with a life-threatening illness turned me into a second-class citizen in the land of time. My days were a slow emergency, my life dwindling to four white walls, a hospital bed, and fluorescent lights, my body punctured by tubes and wires tethering me to various monitors and my IV pole. The world outside my window seemed farther and farther away, my field of vision shrinking to a tiny pinpoint.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 91)
“Over time, I grew allergic to the looks of pity and the positivity pushers who tried to cheer me up with their get-well cards and their exhausting refrains of ‘stay strong’ and ‘keep fighting.’ I began to feel angry at people’s trivial complaints about a stressful day at the office or a broken toe that meant they couldn’t go to the gym for a couple of weeks, and it was hard not to feel left out when my friends told me about a concert or a party they’d been to together.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 76)
“It’s a funny thing, coming home. Everything smells the same, looks the same, feels the same, but you are different; the contrast between who you were when you left and who you are now is heightened against the backdrop of old haunts.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 42)
“The thing about being in love is that you can be anywhere and it feels like an adventure.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 22)
“I was in love with the idea of being in love. Another way to say it is that I was young: too impulsive and reckless with the emotions of others, too self-involved and focused on figuring out what came next for me to dwell on broken promises.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 20)
“Today, we could hope that goodness comes our way—good news, good weather, good luck. Or we could find it ourselves, in ourselves. Goodness isn’t something that’s going to be delivered by mail. You have to dig it up inside your own soul. You find it within your own thoughts, and you make it with your own actions.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 317)
“What’s the point of winning at sports but losing in the effort to be a good husband, wife, father, mother, son, or daughter? Let’s not confuse getting better at stuff with being a better person. One is a much bigger priority than the other.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 315)
“Often, we try to pretend that growth comes with no goodbyes, but it does. Perhaps we can go in with our eyes open, understanding that what we begin will likely end. And when we plan for it, we’ll do it better.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Instead of wasting even a second considering the opinions of future people—people who are not even born yet—focus every bit of yourself on being the best person you can be in the present moment. On doing the right thing, right now. The distant future is irrelevant. Be good and noble and impressive now—while it matters.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 314)
“Until death, it is all life.”
Miguel De Cervantes, via Between Two Kingdoms
“Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love.”
Galway Kinnell, via Sunbeams (Page 141)
“The best revenge is to exact no revenge at all. If someone treats you rudely and you respond with rudeness, you have not done anything but prove to them that they were justified in their actions. If you meet other people’s dishonesty with dishonesty of your own, guess what? You’re proving them right—now everyone is a liar.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 306)
“How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?”
Seneca, On Anger, The Daily Stoic (Page 306)
“There is almost no situation in which hatred helps. Yet almost every situation is made better by love—or empathy, understanding, appreciation—even situations in which you are in opposition to someone. And who knows, you might just get some of that love back.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 305)
“How rotten and fraudulent when people say they intend to ‘give it to you straight.’ What are you up to, dear friend? It shouldn’t need your announcement, but be readily seen as if written on your forehead, heard in the ring of your voice, a flash in your eyes—just as the beloved sees it all in the lover’s glance. In short, the straightforward and good person should be like a smelly goat—you know when they are in the room with you.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 304)