Today’s muse for quotes is one Tom Hiddleston. So all the quotes here today were spoken by him.

Haters never win. I just think that’s true about life, because negative energy always costs in the end.

When people don’t like themselves very much, they have to make up for it. The classic bully was actually a victim first.

Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming.

I grew up watching ‘Superman.’ As a child, when I first learned to dive into a swimming pool, I wasn’t diving, I was flying, like Superman. I used to dream of rescuing a girl I had a crush on from a playground bully.

I don’t think anyone, until their soul leaves their body, is past the point of no return.

Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama; fathers and sons, martyred heroes, star-crossed lovers, the deaths of kings – stories that taught us of the danger of hubris and the primacy of humility.

For myself, for a long time… maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn’t worth hearing, and I think everyone’s voice is worth hearing. So if you’ve got something to say, say it from the rooftops.

If the Loki in ‘Thor’ was about a spiritual confusion – ‘Who am I? How do I belong in this world?’ – the Loki in ‘Avengers’ is, ‘I know exactly who I am, and I’m going to make this world belong to me.’

Heath Ledger’s performance in ‘The Dark Knight’ quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous.

I never like to make plans. It’s nice to just hang.

Showing young children in these communities, that there are outlets for their feelings, that there is room in a space for their stories to be told, and that they will be applauded – and it’s not about ego, it’s about connection: that their pain is everybody else’s pain.

Tony Stark in ‘Iron Man’ helped wider audiences finally embrace the enormous talent of Robert Downey Jr.

Artists instinctively want to reflect humanity, their own and each other’s, in all its intermittent virtue and vitality, frailty and fallibility.

In our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West
“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Cicero
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost
“Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .””
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
― Albert Camus
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

 

It is the familiar that usually eludes us in life. What is before our noses is what we see last.
William Barrett

The grand essentials of life are something to do, something to love, something to hope for.
Thomas Chalmers

The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it.
Seneca
(7 B.C. – 65 A.D.)

Govern thy life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one, and read the other.
Thomas Fuller

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must be willing to relinquish the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell

Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.
W. Humboldt

Everything that happens to us leaves some trace behind; everything contributes imperceptibly to make us what we are.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Unrest of spirit is a mark of life; one problem after another presents itself and in the solving of them we can find our greatest pleasure.
Kal Menninger

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Nelson Henderson

Change is not merely necessary to life, it is life.
Alvin Toffler

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.
Hypocrites

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
Italian Proverb

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
La Bruyere

There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life.
Jawaharlal Nehru

We become happier, much happier, when we realize life is an opportunity rather than an obligation.
Mary Augustine

Life is like a library owned by the author.
In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

We make our fortunes, and we call them fate.
Earl of Beaconsfield

Life is a child playing around your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden.
Jean Anouilh

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
Elbert Hubbard

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
Herman Melville

That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.
Plutarch

Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties.
Emil Nolde

The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.
Plutarch

Life is a rich strain of music, suggesting a realm too fair to be.
George William Curtis

I made my life my monument.
Ben Johnson

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.
Who shall say where one ends,
and the other begins?
Edgar Alan Poe

Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.
Rose Kennedy

One way to get the most out of life is
to look upon it as an adventure.
William Feather

Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel mine and coming out with empty hands.
Japanese Proverb

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are no classes in life for beginners: right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.
Rainer Maria Rilke

To live is like to love–all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
Samuel Butler

One life – a little gleam of time between two eternities.
Thomas Carlyle

Life is a pure flame,
and we live by an invisible sun within us.
Sir Thomas Brown

As I grow to understand life less and less,
I learn to love it more and more.
Jules Renard

Radagast the Brown: The world is in grave danger!

The Tenth Doctor: Need this?

[offers the Fifth Doctor his sonic screwdriver]

The Fifth Doctor: No, I’m fine, thank you.

The Tenth Doctor: [sarcastic] Oh no, of course, you mostly went hands-free didn’t you? It was like, “Hey, I’m the Doctor, I can save the universe using a kettle and some string! And look at me, I’m wearing a vegetable.”

The Tenth Doctor: Allons-y!

Clara: Run. Run you clever boy, and remember…

The Ninth Doctor: Fantastic!

The Ninth Doctor: Do you wanna come with me? ‘Cause if you do then I should warn you, you’re gonna see all sorts of things. Ghosts from the past; Aliens from the future; the day the Earth died in a ball of flame; It won’t be quiet, it won’t be safe, and it won’t be calm. But I’ll tell you what it will be: the trip of a lifetime.

The Tenth Doctor: …The Master, He just showed up again, the same as ever

The Fifth Doctor: Oh no. Really? Does he still have that rubbish beard?

The Tenth Doctor: No, no beard this time. Well, a wife…

River Song: Hello Sweetie.

The Tenth Doctor: Nah, never. Well, maybe.

The Eleventh Doctor: I wouldn’t say that. The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. Hey. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

Amy Pond: When I was a little girl I had an imaginary friend and when I grew up he came back. He’s called The Doctor. He comes from somewhere else. He’s got a box called the TARDIS that’s bigger on the inside and can travel anywhere in time and space. I ran away with him and we’ve been running ever since.

Martha Jones: I battle with textbooks.

The Tenth Doctor: I battle with monsters.

Martha Jones: I’ve tried to save money.

The Tenth Doctor: I’ve tried to save the universe.

Martha Jones: I’m going to be a doctor.

The Tenth Doctor: I *am* the Doctor.

Martha Jones: Well, let’s hope this box is big enough for the both of us.

The Tenth Doctor: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Donna Noble: There are things waiting in the darkness. Creatures of metal, fire and blood. But he’s out there, burning through time, facing a thousand dangers across the stars and never giving up. He looks like a man but he’s a legend and his name is the Doctor. He’ll come back to save us and this time I’m going to be ready. Then just like that…

Donna Noble, The Tenth Doctor: We’ll be gone.

The Ninth Doctor: Me? I am the Doctor.

The Tenth Doctor: Brilliant!

I am in a Loki mood..so…here we go 😉

Thor: Loki, this is madness!
Loki: Is it madness? Is it? IS IT? I don’t know what happened on Earth to make you so soft! Don’t tell me it was that woman?… Oh, it was. Well maybe, when we’re done here, I’ll pay her a visit myself!
[Thor and Loki continue fighting]

Loki: Look at you. The mighty Thor! With all your strength! And what good does it do you now? Do you hear me, brother? There’s nothing you can do!
[Thor smashes the Bifrost] Loki: What are you doing? If you destroy the Bridge, you’ll never see her again!
Thor: Forgive me, Jane!

Loki: What troubles you, gatekeeper?
Heimdall: I turned my gaze upon you in Jotunheim but could neither see you nor hear you. You were shrouded from me like the Frost Giants that had entered this realm.
Loki: Perhaps your senses have weakened after your many years of service.
Heimdall: Or perhaps someone has found a way to hide that which he does not wish me to see.
Loki: You have great power, Heimdall. Did Odin fear you?
Heimdall: No.
Loki: And why is that?
Heimdall: Because he is my king, and I am sworn to obey him.
Loki: He was your king. And you’re sworn to obey me now. Yes?
Heimdall: Yes.
Loki: Then you’ll open the Bifrost to no-one! Until I have repaired the damage that my brother has done!

Loki: Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov’s daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire?… Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it’s GUSHING red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer… PATHETIC! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!… I won’t touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear! And then he’ll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I’ll split his skull! This is MY bargain, you mewling quim!

Loki: Of course it does. I’ve come too far anything else. I am Loki, of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose.

Loki: You WILL kneel before me!

Loki: Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity
Tony Stark: Uh, actually I’m planning to threaten you.
Loki: You should have left your armor on for that.
Tony Stark: Yeah. It’s seen a bit of “mileage” and you got the “glow-stick of destiny”. Would you like a drink?
Loki: Stalling me won’t change anything
Tony Stark: No, no no, threatening! No drink? You sure? I’m having one.

Loki: Enough! You are, all of you are beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by…
[Hulk flattens Loki with repeated smashes into the floor] The Hulk: Puny god.

[Loki awakens to find the Avengers staring at him] Loki: If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now.

 

Abd Er-Rahman III of Spain:
I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen. (960 C.E.)

Abraham Lincoln:
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.-

Albert Camus:
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Albert Camus:
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Albert Camus:
All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

Albert Camus:
When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

Albert Schweitzer:
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Albert Schweitzer:
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer:
Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.

Alexandre Dumas:
There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.

Algernon Black:
Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one’s own way to the highest, to one’s own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one’s ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.

This entry continued …

Allan K. Chalmers:
The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Amy Lowell:
Happiness: We rarely feel it.
I would buy it, beg it, steal it,
Pay in coins of dripping blood
For this one transcendent good.

Anne Frank:
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

Anne Frank:
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.

Aristotle:
Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient

In honor of the Cancer Auction some wonderful friends of mine are doing. Todays Quotable Sunday is…Cancer Quotes.

If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell. – Lance Armstrong

Cancer is a word, not a sentence. – John Diamond

My cancer scare changed my life. I’m grateful for every new, healthy day I have. It has helped me prioritize my life. – Olivia Newton-John

What cancer does is, it forces you to focus, to prioritize, and you learn what’s important. I mean, I don’t sweat the small stuff. I used to get angry at cab drivers. It’s not worth it…. And when somebody says you have cancer, you realize it’s all small stuff. And if it weren’t for the downside, everyone would want to have it. But there is a downside. – Joel Siegel

During chemo, you’re more tired than you’ve ever been. It’s like a cloud passing over the sun, and suddenly you’re out. But you also find that you’re stronger than you’ve ever been. You’re clear. Your mortality is at optimal distance, not up so close that it obscures everything else, but close enough to give you depth perception. Previously, it has taken you weeks, months, or years to discover the meaning of an experience. Now it’s instantaneous. – Melissa Bank

Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death. – Author Unknown

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. – Winston Churchill

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. – C.C. Scott

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. – Anne Frank

Never, never, never give up. – Winston Churchill

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. – Eleanor Roosevelt

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. – Abraham Lincoln

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible. – Christopher Reeve

Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts – it’s what you do with what you have left. – Hubert Humphrey

Some see a hopeless end, while others see an endless hope. – Author Unknown

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

The only disability in life is a bad attitude. – Scott Hamilton

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. – Robert Brault

Anywhere is paradise; it’s up to you. – Author Unknown

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. – Author Unknown

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. – Hugh Downs

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind. – John Burroughs

It isn’t our position but our disposition which makes us happy. – Author Unknown

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. – Maori Proverb

He who fears something gives it power over him. – Moorish Proverb

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. – Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. – Dan Rather

In time of test, family is best. – Burmese Proverb

This week.MyRelation…Mark Twain.

…great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter and not by the trimmings and shadings of their grammer.
– Mark Twain, a Biography

When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.
– The Prince and the Pauper

U.S. stamps commemorating American literature

Photo courtesy of Dave Thomson
Classic–a book which people praise and don’t read.
– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination.
– “A Fable”

The index of a book should always be written by the author, even though the book itself should be the work of another hand.
– attributed by Robert Underwood Johnson, Remembered Yesterdays

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.
– Letter to Henry H. Rogers, 26 – 28 April 1897

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
– Letter to Fred J. Hall, 10 Aug 1892

We write frankly and fearlessly but then we “modify” before we print.
– Life on the Mississippi

It is no use to keep private information which you can’t show off.
– “An Author’s Soldiering,” 1887

Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.
– letter to Bruce Weston Munro, 21 Oct 1881 (Karanovich collection)

From St. Nicholas Magazine, August 1916.
From the Dave Thomson
collection

Well, my book is written–let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn’t be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can’t ever be said. And besides, they would require a library–and a pen warmed up in hell.
– Letter to W. D. Howells, 22 Sept 1889 (referring to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)

I wrote the rest of The Innocents Abroad in sixty days and I could have added a fortnight’s labor with the pen and gotten along without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days, exceedingly young, marvelously young, younger than I am now, younger than I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night from eleven or twelve until broad daylight in the morning, and as I did 200,000 words in the sixty days, the average was more than 3,000 words a day- nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for Louis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome for me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I was writing the book called Following the Equator, my average was 1,800 words a day; here in Florence (1904) my average seems to be 1,400 words per sitting of four or five hours.
– Autobiography of Mark Twain

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
– Letter to Orion Clemens, 23 March 1878

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.
– Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1902-1903

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
– Letter to Emeline Beach, 10 Feb 1868

Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style.
– Letter to George Bainton, 15 Oct 1888; (first printed in The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners, Personally Contributed by Leading Authors of the Day. Compiled and Edited by George Bainton. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890, pp. 85-88.)

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
– Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880