Mary Schmich Quotes - Page 2

The Hunger Games' isn't for everybody. But neither is 'Anna Karenina.

The first gay person I ever met was surely not the first gay person I ever met.

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Be nice to your siblings. They are your link to the past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Getting out of the house is the secret to staying alert through the droning hours leading up to the big meal, even if you don't go farther than 7-Eleven for another six-pack.

In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

The secret to happiness, at Thanksgiving or any time, is to reframe obligation as opportunity. You don't have to spend Thanksgiving with your family. You get to.

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.

On an average day, we allow ourselves the fiction that we own a piece of our workplace. That's part of what it takes to get the job done. Deeper down, we know it's all on loan.

Books are like blankets, the mere sight of them around the house provides warmth and comfort. They are like mirrors, too, reflecting places I've been, phases I've been through, people I've loved or thought I did.

Unusual commencement advice: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

Every day each of us wakes up, reaches into drawers and closets, pulls out a costume for the day and proceeds to dress in a style that can only be called preposterous.

Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right.

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft

The soul-sucking activity of TV-watching feels better when it is done with other souls.

Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer.

Do one thing every day that scares you... Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own... Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

TV happens. And once it's happened, it's gone. When it's gone, you move on, no tears, no tantrums, no videotape

Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.