*Commonplace Book

“sometimes courage isn’t climbing Mount Everest or changing the world. Sometimes your mountain to climb is made up of weekdays and months, made up of pushing yourself forward even when you want to nestle into the past. Sometimes changing the world means changing your world as gradually as you need to, as gently as you heal, because sometimes courag

This is how to tell a success story: Rather than telling a story of your full and complete accomplishment, tell the story of a small part of the success. Tell about a small step. Feel free to allude to the better days that may lie ahead, but don’t try to tell everything. Small steps only.

Dan Kennedy • Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Chang

"A camera teaches people how to see without a camera"

Dorothea Lange

“I think the biggest reason that labor-saving technology in the home didn’t actually reduce labor for housewives is that the opportunity cost of women’s labor was socially valued at zero,” Schor told me. “By that I mean, a lot of men wanted their wives to keep busy but assumed that they would be worthless outside the home, as salaried workers, like

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

William James

“Artists, poets, whatever you want to call those people whose job is “making” take in the commonplace and are forever recognizing it as worthwhile.

I think I am always collecting in a way, walking down a street with my eyes open, looking through a magazine, viewing a movie, visiting a museum or grocery store.

Some of the things I collect are tangible

“I came to understand the [meditation] task not as emptying your head of thoughts, but rather resisting the tendency to narrate things to yourself in words. I noticed that this interior monologuing would lead me along familiar, superficial trains of thought, to recent memories associated with certain feelings, say, and soon enough back to mundane a

“To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more — and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.”

Susan Sontag - On Pho

“You are allowed to take up space. Own who you are and what you want for yourself. Stop downplaying the things you care about, the hopes you have. Own your passions, your thoughts, your perceptions. Own your fire. Stop putting your worth in the hands of others; stop letting them decide your value. Own saying no, saying yes. Own your mood, your feel