“Give yourself no choice but to succeed. Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you’ll have no choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.”
“This deep internalized shame gives rise to distorted thinking. The distorted thinking can be reduced to the belief that I’ll be okay if I drink, eat, have sex, get more money, work harder, etc.”
″‘Little one,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘do not worry – it will not matter to us. We will pay them all somehow. I will work harder.’ That was always what Jurgis said. Ona had grown used to it as the solution of all difficulties – ‘I will work harder!’ He had said that in Lithuania when one official had taken his passport from him, and another had arrested him for being without it, and the two had divided a third of his belongings. He had said it again in New York, when the smooth-spoken agent had taken them in hand and made them pay such high prices, and almost prevented their leaving his place, in spite of their paying. Now he said it a third time, and Ona drew a deep breath; it was so wonderful to have a husband, just like a grown woman – and a husband who could solve all problems, and who was so big and strong!”
“So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.”
“The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.”
“You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart... And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway.”
“Jean Louise, I’ve had to scratch since I was a kid for the things you and Jem took for granted. I’ve never had some of the things you take for granted and I never will. All I have to fall back on is myself.”
“I won’t just have a job; I’ll have a calling. I’ll challenge myself every day. When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest.”
“‘You don’t get to be the mother if you show up after the kids are already grown up. She’s like all those animals at the end of the story who show up to eat the Little Red Hen’s bread.’”
“Even took that kind of work from the white boys, because they would do it so much cheaper than the white boys would. Anything not to work alongside the niggers.”
“Nobody’s going to save you. No one’s going to cut you down, cut the thorns thick around you. No one’s going to storm the castle walls nor kiss awake your birth, climb down your hair, nor mount you onto the white steed. There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do, do it yourself.”
“That place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.”
“I am still God’s child. My life is more than this life. These days are a vapor, a passing breeze. This will eventually pass. God will make something good out of this. I will work hard, stay faithful, and trust him no matter what.”
“It is hard,--hard to work always--always alone with never a friend you can have in honour, and the love that is offered means the streets, the boulevard--when passion is dead. I know it,--we know it,--we others who have nothing,--have no one, and who give ourselves, unquestioning--heart and soul, knowing the end.”
“Listen, God can’t bless what you won’t do. You haven’t been taught correctly. Prosperity doesn’t just come from giving an offering. It’s good to be a giver. But you must also be a thinker, a planner, and a worker.”
“I am strong and I work hard and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild mannered. If you should still care to write, I would be interested in your children and about where you live. And you.”
“If you want to catch beasts you don’t see every day, you have to go place quite out-of-the-way. You have to go places no others can get to. You have to get cold and you have to get wet, too.”
“The mice kept their half of the bargain and worked quite hard every day. They made sure that the flowers were always fresh and artistically arranged. They polished the congregation’s shoes while they listened to the sermon. If there was a wedding they all went outside to pick up the confetti, and if anyone had thrown rice they picked that up too and made a big rice pudding for supper.”