They Say...

There's nothing like a good quote. As a writer, I'm always hoping to come up with one of my own. But for the time being, I'll have to rely on others who have said it best. This page will be a work in progress, as I'm always paying attention to what "they say"...

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"Pain and suffering are inevitable in our lives, but misery is an option."
-Chip Beck, Professional Golfer

"I'm 36 years old, I love my family, I love baseball and I'm about to become a farmer. But until I heard the voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole life."
-Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams

"There's a diffrence between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is merely the absence of success. Any fool can achieve failure. But a fiasco, a fiasco is a disaster of epic propotions. A fiasco is a folk tale told to other's to make other people feel more alive because it didn't happen to them."
-Drew Baylor, Elizabethtown

"It's really an advantage when you don't watch film, because then you can be stupid."
-Mack Brown, Head Football Coach, University of Texas

"There's no dollar sign on a peace of mind, this I've come to know."
-Zac Brown Band, Chicken Fried

"When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time."
-Kevin Arnold, The Wonder Years

"Fundamentals are a crutch for the talentless."
-Kenny Powers, Eastbound and Down

"Don't let her be a regret...it's worse than being a loser."
-Simon Wilder, With Honors

"When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
-Jacob Riis, Stonecutter Credo

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For 15 minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid - ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."
-Ricky Fitts, American Beauty

"The book of love, has music in it.
In fact, that's where music comes from."
-Peter Gabriel, Book of Love

"I have just created something totally illogical."
-Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams

"Who's gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It's chocolate, it's peppermint...it's delicious!"
-Kramer, Seinfeld

“Well, all I'm saying is that I want to look back and say that I did I the best I could while I was stuck in this place…Had as much fun as I could while I was stuck in this place…Played as hard as I could while I was stuck in this place...Dogged as many girls as I could while I was stuck in this place.”
-Dawson, Dazed and Confused

“So you failed. Alright you really failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You think I care about that? I do understand. You wanna be really great? Then have the courage to fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you're still smiling.”
-Claire Colburn, Elizabethtown

“You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle…but you can’t win much, either.”
-Mike McDermott, Rounders

“That’s called the ‘quart-of-blood’ technique. You do that, a quart of blood will drop out of a person’s body.”
-Billy Ray Valentine, Trading Places

“I relate to George through you. We’re more like friends-in-law.”
-Elaine Benes, Seinfeld

“Remember those posters that said, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’? Well, that’s true of every day but one – the day you die.”
-Lester Burnham, American Beauty

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
-Albert Einstein

“What will be the next thing that challenges us? That makes us go farther and work harder? You know that when smallpox was eradicated, it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of this century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in the time when our eyes looked towards the heavens, and with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of G-d.”
-President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing

“It became clear to me sitting out there today that every decision I’ve made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat – it’s all been wrong.”
-George Costanza, Seinfeld

“Yeah, you know gray…it’s my favorite color.”
-Counting Crows, Mr. Jones

“You’re a big winner. I’m gonna ask you a simple question and I want you to listen to me: who’s the big winner here tonight at the casino? Huh? Mikey, that’s who. Mikey’s the big winner. Mikey wins.”
-Trent, Swingers

“The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.”
-Henry Ford

“You know the message you’re sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You’re telling the world, ‘I give up. I can’t compete in normal society. I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.’”
-Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld

“Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself.”
-Charles de Gaulle

“The wind blows wild, and I may move.
The politicians lie, and I am not fooled.
You don’t need no reason or a three piece suit to argue the truth.”
-Brett Dennan, Ain’t No Reason

“In Philadelphia, it’s worth $50.”
-Pawnbroker (Bo Diddley), Trading Places

“If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.”
-Isaac Jaffe, Sports Night

“If you weren’t real, I would make you up.”
-Joseph Arthur, Honey and the Moon

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
-Tyler Durden, Fight Club

“I went broke believing that the simple should be hard.”
-Matt Nathanson, All We Are

“Everyone’s got plans…until they get hit.”
-Mike Tyson

“Straight cash, homey.”
-Randy Moss, on how he settles his financial debts.

"Do the thing you fear, and the death of that fear is certain."
-Joe Stoller (courtesy of Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Greatness courts failure."
-Roy McAvoy, Tin Cup

"Sadness is easier, because it's surrender. I say, make time to dance alone with one hand waving free."
-Claire Colburn, Elizabethtown

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt, To the Man in the Arena

"The answer's in the dirt...dig it out."
-Ben Hogan, Golfer

"No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy. The motto of the British Special Service Air Force is: 'Those who risk...win.' A single green vine shoot is able to grow through cement. The Pacific Northwestern salmon beats itself bloody by traveling hundreds of miles upstream - against the current - with a single purpose: sex, of course. But also...life."
-Drew Baylor, Elizabethtown

"Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man - there's your diamond in the rough."
-Larry David

"Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?"
-MGMT, Time to Pretend

"Like Papa Walenda said, 'Life is on the wire...the rest is just waiting.'"
-Mike McDermott, Rounders

"In that moment, I knew that success - not greatness - was the only god the world served."
-Drew Baylor, Elizabethtown

"'Cuz I could never live with me before you came along."
-The Churchills, Everybody Gets What They Deserve

"Bob Dylan once wrote: The times they are a-changin'. Ron Burgundy had never heard that song."
-Narrator, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

“According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
-Jerry Seinfeld