Snippets

I have always been somewhat of a collector of quotes. I scribble them on napkins, in notebooks, on junk mail envelopes, and in my journal when I come across one that inspires me in that moment. They are everywhere, things people say that evoke my imagination, make me think about something in a different way; even yoga class seems to be full of them. Instructors have a way of finding or sensing exactly what it is that I need to hear. Since it would be rude to pull out my notebook and start writing, I am left to exercise my brain trying to remember the quote by saying it 12 times fast, while upside down in headstand. It is a tactic that isn’t always successful as it is very distracting to what is supposed to be a very focused activity.
Friends often come up with the best, whether they are clichés that somehow still manage to ring true, a regional dialect I have never heard, or just heart-warming advice given in the form of a familiar quote.


Here is a mixed bag of current favorites that came from all different kinds of sources:

“Leave the party while you are still having a good time”
(all time fave)

“Friends are More Important than Money”

“Do what you believe in. Believe in what you do. All else is a waste of time and energy” (Yoga Class Classic)

“And finally, did you wait for the end of your life to decide what your life should be about? Did you wait until it was too late?” (another yoga quote)

“Do something everyday that scares you” (unkown)

“An adventure is something that is happening when you wish it wasn’t”

“Just fly and be free” (my friend Buzz)

“Live an ordinary life in an extraordinary way” (my friend Whitney)

“Breathe. Breathe deeply. Exhale.” (Yoga, of course)

"Life is a book; those that don't travel read only a page" (unknown)

"Show your Love" (a pin I saw on someone's hat last week)

I dedicated an entire section of my notebook to my friend Woody, who spews great quotes with ease. The title of his special pages in my tattered Dewey Howard notebook is simply “Woody-isms”.

Here are a few:

“Ass, grass or gas: Nobody rides for free”
(Bear in mind he is a skydiving pilot)

“Plan for the worst, hope for the best”
(while he was teaching me to pack my parachute)

“Puerto Sucks!”
(inside joke, referring to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, which doesn’t suck at all)

“Never draw attention to yourself”
(coming from a man with more than 10,000 skydives, yet many
people here don’t even know he is a skydiver [because he is always flying the plane and never bragging about jumps he’s done])


Words are powerful. Writing is an outlet, an escape, an adventure; stringing together the right sequence of words is often a formidable task that takes a lot of work. I have a lot of respect for a well written one-liner that requires only a few well-chosen words to convey the message.

I would love to hear some of yours! Feel free to comment and leave your own snippet.