“All around the dining hall, you can feel the rejuvenating effect that a good meal can bring on. The way it can make people kinder, funnier, more optimistic, and remind them it's not a mistake to go on living. It's better than any medicine.”

“You can always push people around, but it's not a good idea. Better to let them volunteer information for reasons of their own. You get more that way.”

“The biggest mistake any of us can make is thinking that love is a feeling, an emotion. It's not that at all. It's an action.”

“Quitting is not giving up, it's choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it's realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time. Quitting is not making excuses, it's learning to be more productive, efficient and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so you can do more things that will bring you strength.”

“Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to them. But you can do just as much as you can in the case of the plant: you can supply the growing seed with the materials for the making up of its body, bringing to it the earth, the water, the air, that it wants. It will take all that it wants by its own nature, it will assimilate and grow by its own nature.”

“...there's no mistake if you can resolve it, whether it's in your music or in your life. Sometimes the mistake motivates you or elevates you to a different circumstance that can be better. If I make a mistake, I'm going to develop that mistake, so it doesn't sound like a mistake. -Dave Brubeck”