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“Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.”
― Jacquelyn Mitchard

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”
― Anne Lamott

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”
― Jack London

“A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.”
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?"

"I give."

"You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.”
― Dean Koontz, False Memory

“The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That's never happened to me before. You know, on a long tour you do hear people saying they miss their pets. I never have. But last night I started really missing my dog.
It's very odd, 'cause I don't have a dog.”
― Bono

“I don't think twice about picking up my dog's poop, but if another dog's poop is next to it, I think, 'Eww, dog poop!”
― Jonah Goldberg

“Give your weakness to one who helps.”
― Rumi

“Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with—rather than in competition with—the world. Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.”
― Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

“ago that if I want creativity in my life—and I do—then I will have to make space for fear, too.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“If you do say yes to an idea, now it’s showtime.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“A different way is to cooperate fully, humbly, and joyfully with inspiration.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama or dread.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“As Joan Didion said, “I don’t know what I think until I write about it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“I believe that inspiration will always try its best to work with you—but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“You didn’t show up ready enough, or fast enough, or openly enough for the idea to take hold within you and complete itself. Therefore, the idea went hunting for a new partner, and somebody else got to make the thing.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Inspiration is allowed to do whatever it wants to, in fact, and it is never obliged to justify its motives to any of us.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“What was there for Harper Lee to be afraid of, after all? Possibly just this: That she could not outdo Harper Lee.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

“When one woman doesn't speak, other women get hurt.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.”
― Carol Shields

“You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are."
"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you."
"What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?"
"Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained with. I can't offer it the names of the US presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can't give it the names of state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.
...My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today doesn't matter.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice