Quotes That Inspire Me
Take a peek inside my journals.
Hi, it’s me.
I’ve been sick for over a week, now. It started as a chest and sore throat thing, then turned into a body ache and fatigue thing. It’s not COVID. Pretty sure it’s the flu. Yesterday I took a break from working in my home office and accidentally fell asleep for four hours in the middle of the day.
When I’m sick, I like to watch the movie Steel Magnolias (1989). I’ve seen it 500 times and still cry at the end, every damn time. The ending hits differently now that I’m a mom of an adult daughter. Shelby’s death is less imagination and more possibility now, but maybe that’s just my Worst Case Scenario brain in action.
I’ve seen the movie so many times I can recite most of the lines when I’m not delirious with fever.
“You know I love you more than my luggage.”
“I’d recognize that penmanship anywhere - you’ve got the handwriting of a serial killer.”
“I promise that my own personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair!”
These are just a few I love. Do you know this movie? Do you have favorite lines from it? How do you cope with the boredom of being too sick to do anything useful?
I’ve been collecting quotes for most of my adult life.
Before I was married, I posted sticky notes with handwritten quotes all over my apartment — on the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, or the window above my kitchen sink.
Then for awhile in the 2000s, I had a quotes page on my blog that I would add to from books, song lyrics, or TV shows.
I also had a phase where I would write quotes from a book I was reading on the blank pages in the front and back of the book. And I’m seriously considering moving into tattoo territory with some of my favorite quotes.
For the last several years I’ve been collecting quotes in the front pages of my journals. As I flip through these recent collections (pictured throughout this post), I realize they’re like opening credits to the story within the journal’s pages. A glimpse of themes to come. For example, the many quotes I recorded from reading the book Dune with my son in 2021, recorded in the journal with my notes from our podcast we did together.
It’s only natural that I’m collecting quotes to include in my book — each chapter will open with one. The disproportionate amount of joy I experience from this small act of creative curation is ridiculous, but I’m so in love with this part of the process that I don’t even care if I’m the only person who appreciates the outcome.
One quote that became a serious contender for inclusion a couple weeks ago is the chorus lyrics from Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. Why do I cry every time I hear that song? And I mean every time. Even played on repeat, I still get choked up.
So I remember when we were drivin', drivin' in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
I had a feeling I could be someone
Be someone, be someone
- Tracy Chapman, Fast Car
I’ve never been poor. I never lived in a shelter or had a dad who lived with the bottle. So why is this song so damn relatable? And then it hit me as I watched the Grammys and saw songwriters and performers from every genre singing along with Chapman and Luke Combs’ performance:1
Everyone can relate to the search for belonging.
With your arm wrapped ‘round me I had a feeling that I belonged, that I could be someone.
A theme that has revealed itself as I write my book is belonging. When we belong with people, we feel invincible. When we don’t feel a sense of belonging, we feel vulnerable and exposed, and we go looking for it somewhere else.
I haven’t always felt like I belonged in my family, so I compensated by creating a chosen family. And as much as I tried to create a sense of belonging in the family Bryan and I created, we haven’t always gotten it right.
Exploring this topic through the lens of parenting and being parented has been difficult, but also healing.
Throw a favorite quote at me in the comments (and why it’s meaningful to you)! Maybe I’ll add some to my journal quote collection.
Until next time,
Jen
For an excellent write-up of this Grammy performance and the meaningful events leading up to it, read this great essay from Songs That Saved Your Life:
"I haven't seen my father in some time, but his face is always staring back at me. His heavy hands hang at the end of my arms." "I haven't heard my mother's voice in a while, but her words are always fallin out my mouth" Brandi Carlile
Quote is a verb and Quotation is a noun and I have an internal struggle with myself every time because I want to say QUOTES but then I force myself to write QUOTATIONS and then it feels pretentious and the moment is gone.
I have many favorites:
"The house doesn't fall when the bones are good."
"There are not the best of times, but they're the only times I'll ever know."
“Love the discipline you know and let it support you.” Marcus Aurelius
If a flower fails to bloom, do we try to fix the flower?
"We are as gods and might as well get good at it"
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." St. Augustine
"To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride." - Anthony Bourdain