a dignity

I believe very deeply in the human spirit and I have a sense of awe about it because I don’t know how people carry on…I’ve known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and they don’t ask quarters.

Horton Foote, interview with The New York Times Magazine (1986)

cracked kettle

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1857)

commit

What the world needs more of is not new ideas and daring dreams, but commitment. A willingness to do the hard work that matters… It’s time to commit. To a job, a relationship, a path. Something. Anything. We don’t need your restlessness or your excitement. We have enough Peter Pans, thank you very much. What we need is a little more conviction in our difference-makers. We need your focus, your pluck, your courage. We need you to commit.

Jeff Goins, “The Three Levels of Commitment” (2013)

good

Today you graduate, and today you already know what I know: to get where you’re going, you have to be good, and to be good where you’re going, you have to be damned good. Every once in a while, you’ll succeed. Most of the time you’ll fail, and most of the time the circumstances will be well beyond your control.

Aaron Sorkin, Syracuse Commencement Address (2012)

Note: Ok, that’s all the Sorkin for a while, I promise! #sorries #guiltyface

super dumb

Make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You’re a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You’re barely functional. There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they’re a-coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

Aaron Sorkin, Syracuse Commencement Address (2012)

show up

Today is May 13th and today you graduate and the rules are about to change, and one of them is this: Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world.

Aaron Sorkin, Syracuse Commencement Address (2012)

i don’t know

There is really no prescription for creative work, I heard a writer say the other day that he sits down at the keyboard and the first thing he says to himself is ‘I don’t know.’

Geoff Talbot, as quoted in “The Joy of Creative Ignorance” on 99u (2013)

gloss

The problem with the “Gatsby” movies…is that they look like they were made by Gatsby. The trick is to make a Gatsby movie that couldn’t have been made by Gatsby — an unglossy portrait of gloss.

 Leon Wieseltier, as quoted in New York Times, “In a Gaudy Theme Park, Jay-Z Meets J-Gatz” (2013)

power and dream

Gatsby, divided between power and dream, comes inevitably to stand for America itself.

Lionel Trilling, “F. Scott Fitzgerald” in The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society (1951)

work ethic

Your ambition has very little to do with your work ethic. You can still sit down and get everything done in the day without having a panic attack.

Roger Hobbs, interview with Wall Street Journal: “How a Twentysomething Debut Author Pulled Off a Crime Bestseller” (2013)

live on

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.

Lord George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third, XXXII (1816)

step back / take in

When you’re in your 20s and have that leadership gene, the bad thing is that you don’t know when to shut up. You think you know all the answers, but you don’t. What you learn later is when to just listen to everybody else…Creativity cannot explode if you do not have the ability to step back, take in what everybody else says and then fuse it with your own ideas.

Francesca Zambello, interview with the New York Times (2013)

stings

You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will—undoubtedly—fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I’m just not going to let this get me down.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, interview on “All Things Considered,” NPR (2013)

yours

The University of Texas is your University, your property, its raw material the children from your homes, its product, the citizens of your state. You are by virtue of citizenship its ultimate stockholders, and vitally concerned in its ideals, its conduct and its welfare.

Robert Ernest Vinson, Plain Facts About Your University, undated