"Can you rework your past, the grit that rubs in you, until it is shiny and smooth as a pearl?"

--

Source : Anna Funder (2011). “Stasiland: Stories From Behind The Berlin Wall”, p.162, Granta Books

Anna Funder

#Past Quotes #Grit Quotes #Pearls Quotes

“Nothing is true unless it works. And it has to work for you, not for someone else.”

Source : Raymond Charles Barker (2011). “The Power of Decision: A Step-By-Step Program to Overcome Indecision and Live Without Failure Forever”, p.18, Penguin
“I have no desire to walk on water," said Siddhartha. "Let the old shramanas satisfy themselves with such skills.”
“One of my weekend hobbies is to go look at old houses when there are open houses around here. Just to go look at the architecture. And you can see how many houses were built around 1977, the year where everyone said, "Let's put in these aluminum windows instead of beautiful hand-made wood ones."”
“Sometimes all that saves me is being willing to make mistakes. There are projects that strike me as so beautiful, important, complicated, or just plain big, that they convince me of my own inadequacy. This awful state of reverence leads to paralyzing brain freeze. At times like that the only way out is for me to decide, 'To hell with it. I can't do it right, so I'll do it wrong. I can't do it well, but I can do it badly.' Sometimes, with luck, while I'm sweating to do it wrong, I stumble on a right way.”
“I have lived long enough to be battered by the realities of life, and not too long to be downed by them.”
“I do some of my best thinking while pulling weeds.”
“Being the inventor of sex would seem to be a sufficient distinction for a creature just barely large enough to be seen by the naked eye.”
“If I train the hardest, run the longest, go beyond what anyone else has the mental determination to do, I will be the winner.”

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