“if you wanted special things to happen in your life, then you had to damn well get up of your own backside and make them happen yourself.”

“a wish is a good place to start but then you have to get off your butt and make it happen. You have to pick up a quill and write your own damn story.”

“Sometimes life gets in your way. it gets all up in your damn way. But it doesn't get all up in your damn waybecause it wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn't get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along. Life wants you to fight itLearn how to make it your own. it wants you to grab and axe and hack through the wood. It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through concrete. It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it. Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together, stir it up, blend it.”

“Stop trying to make thing happen for yourself, and let them happen to you.”

“She had never expected anything special to just happen to her. Her plan for life was to get out there and make special things happen, which was a much more sensible plan from a probability point of view.”

“They tell you to do your own thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too.”