Autobiographical Quotes

“I learned to read at a young age and I have always read voraciously. It is one of the few things, aside from getting fucked up and getting in trouble, that I have done consistently throughout my entire life.”
― James Frey

“In a sense, the better you adapt to school the less your chances are of later adapting to the actual world. So I figure, the worse you adapt to school, the better you will be able to handle reality when you finally manage to get loose at last from school, if that ever happens. But I guess I have what in the military they call a 'poor attitude,' which means 'shape up or ship out.' I always elected to ship out.”
― Philip K. Dick

“বারোটার সময় দাঁড়ালাম পেতলের ঘণ্টাটার পাশে। ওই ঘণ্টার শব্দ গুণে আমি ইস্কুলে যাই। কতো মধ্যরাতে ঘুম ভেঙে শুনেছি ওই ঘণ্টার দিগন্তের রহস্যবিভোর ধ্বনি। একজন দারোয়ান একটা বড় মুগুর দিয়ে দুটো-দুটো ক'রে ঘা দিলো। পৃথিবীতে বারোটা বাজলো, দুপুর হলো। সময়কে সেদিন আমরা বাজতে দেখলাম।”
― হুমায়ুন আজাদ, ফুলের গন্ধে ঘুম আসে না

“পালাতে পারলেই তো শুধু পারা যায় বেঁচে থাকতে।”
― হুমায়ুন আজাদ, ফুলের গন্ধে ঘুম আসে না

“The neural basis for the self, as I see it, resides with the continuous reactivation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography, on the basis of which a notion of identity can be reconstructed repeatedly, by partial activation in topologically organized sensory maps. ...
In brief, the endless reactivation of updated images about our identity (a combination of memories of the past and of the planned future) constitutes a sizable part of the state of self as I understand it.
The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of an individual's body ... Of necessity, this encompasses background body states and emotional states. The collective representation of the body constitute the basis for a "concept" of self, much as a collection of representations of shape, size, color, texture, and taste can constitute the basis for the concept of orange.”
― António R. Damásio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

“Beautiful day out there,” I said, perching on the stool and crossing my legs. “It’s autumn, Sunday, great weather, and crowded everywhere you go. Relaxing indoors like this is the best thing you can do on such a nice day. It’s exhausting to get into those crowds. And the air is bad. I mostly do laundry on Sundays—wash the stuff in the morning, hang it out on the roof of my dorm, take it in before the sun goes down, do a good job of ironing it. I don’t mind ironing at all. There’s a special satisfaction in making wrinkled things smooth. And I’m pretty good at it, too. Of course, I was lousy at it at first. I put creases in everything. After a month of practice, though, I knew what I was doing. So Sunday is my day for laundry and ironing. I couldn’t do it today, of course. Too bad: wasted a perfect laundry day.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Don't ask me, I'm British.”
― Bill Fairclough, Beyond Enkription

“Silence in the shell of a city, no baby crying, no car honking, no ambulance shrieking, no lovers moaning, no drunks throwing up in the alley, no lights, nothing but wind and rain and snow in its season and rust and a rattling of open doors and carcass smell. It was a possibility like a brain tumor or a scorpion bite.”
― Anne Roiphe, Art and Madness: A Memoir of Lust Without Reason

“It is better to be a has-been than a never-was”
― John Osborne, Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise

“I was not born happy. As a child, my favourite hymn was :'Weary of earth and laden with my sin.' At the age of five, I reflected that, if I should live to be seventy, I had only endured, so far, a fourteenth part of my whole life, and I felt the long-spread-out boredom ahead of me to be almost unedurable. In adolescense, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Trail magic, the amazing things that happen when you’re out and about, when you open yourself to new experiences, when you pay attention.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“To read, or not to read....that is the question!”
― Mary Weaver

“I promise you that if somebody had caught me by the shoulder at that moment and said to me, ‘What is your greatest wish in life, little boy? What is your absolute ambition? To be a doctor? A fine musician? A painter? A writer? Or the Lord Chancellor?’ I would have answered without hesitation that my only ambition, my hope, my longing was to have a bike like that and to go whizzing down the hill with no hands on the handlebars. It would be fabulous. It made me tremble just to think about it.”
― Roald Dahl, Boy: Tales of Childhood

“About the author: Sean Michael Norris believes that this book serves as a sort of autobiography. Despite the fact that this story is a fictional product of his imagination, he feels that it represents a true portrait of his experience — that it honestly depicts how a younger, more vulnerable version of himself saw the world. And if he’s right about that, then to read this book is to learn about its author at a deeper level than any list of biographical facts could ever enable you to reach.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“In the wilderness, as in life, to get to where you want to go, you first have to know where you are, and in life at least, who you are.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“I have found that success often comes out of many failures. In some of my failures, I have come face-to-face with the fact I just don’t know enough to do what I’m trying to do. There’s no shame in that. I still have worth and value, despite what I don’t know.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“I have tried and I enjoy yoga. But if you tell me to try yoga, then I will have to fight you. You will win, but I might nip at your jugular with my sharp incisors first.”
― Sonya Huber, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System

“Play Tupperware drums as often as you can!”
― Jana Gillham, The Art of Farewell

“God, save me and I will serve You as long as I live!”
― William Hermanns, The holocaust;: From a survivor of Verdun

“The philosophy that guided my ultralight backpacking innovations—“take less, do more”—also guided me in just about every aspect of my life.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“When we know exactly what we need and how to provide it for ourselves, then we also come to recognize what is not essential.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“In all aspects of our lives, balance matters, and it shapes what our ultimate experience will be. But to find our own true and unique balance, we have to first assess our choices.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Facing failure and learning to overcome it can be a powerful motivator, giving us a boost that transcends the problem currently facing us.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Being kind and generous doesn’t always have to cost us a lot. It’s more a matter of attuning ourselves to those around us. But that takes practice, like everything else.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“By taking less, I’m able to do more, and the result benefits the entire community. What more could we want for a healthy and fulfilling life?”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Grief and times of desolation will visit every one of us, and learning to see them as a gift rather than a curse can change our resistance.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“We must learn to consciously remind ourselves of our copious blessings even when the rest of our life doesn’t measure up in the way we want. There will always be aches and wishes beyond our reach, and yet we can still appreciate what we have and share our plenty.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“If we’re not constantly pushing the boundaries of what we know and how we’re interacting with the world around us, then life becomes repetitive and tedious.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed----To Whom It May Concern---that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“We found hell in a beautiful neighborhood.”
― David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds