Since I was in junior high school, I clipped cartoons, phrases and sentences from newspapers. I wanted to remember and look back at them later to laugh or remember a quote that was meaningful to me. During the past couple weeks I have been cleaning out my desk and a large storage unit and as part of that, re-discovered some my notes and quotes that I have collected over many decades.
”The difference between the right word and the almost right word, is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug” attributed to Mark Twain.
”The flowering of the person is not a state at which we arrive; it is the movement that results from perpetual incompleteness.” attributed to Paul Tournier.
One of my favorites I found in high school or my early college years, “Finding Oz”. by Wanda Cavanaugh. I loved it then and love it now. A small portion of this — “Whenever I hear the line ‘Oz never did give nothing to the Tinman that he didn’t already have’, I think about what I learned from that childhood classic. It’s been stated a dozen different ways, but the main point is that the person with the ability to change and control our lives is ourselves.”
Later in the piece she says “If I were to give advice to someone looking for a new career, a new idea, a new plan for something, a new hobby, I would say three things: 1. The answer is in you. 2. Look for the thing that will help you discover it. 3. Be ready for it.”
She sums it up with “Life is like a trip through Oz where you must let yourself hear and accept the ideas as they come to you or you will never get a heart, a trip to Kansas or Oz, a brain, or whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Do you have some favorites that you keep and pull out of an old folder or box and read. And enjoy. And say to yourself, “Some things are timeless.”