Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember.

Spike Lee in the New York Times 2-22-22

And when young filmmakers come to you for advice, what do you tell them?

You bust your ass. At work. That's the thing I harp on. Work ethic. Work ethic. Work ethic. You got to work.

Aretha Franklin in Detroit Free Press

You cannot define a person on just one thing. You can't just forget all these wonderful and good things that a person has done because one thing didn't come off the way you thought it should come off.

Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes”

…

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

Abraham Lincoln

"I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it… where will it stop?"

Stella Adler, The Art of Acting

There is one rule to be learned. Life is not you. Life is outside you. If it is outside, you must go toward it. You must go toward a person, and if he or she backs off it's their fault. The essential thing to know is that life is in front of you. Go toward it.

bell hooks, All About Love

Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.