Quotes: Claire McMillan

"I've been thinking about ritual," I said, handing her a book by Gurdjeff, who we'd recently discovered was a shared favourite. "That's all any ritual or ceremony is trying to do, to make manifest in the material world an intangible shift in spirit. So I've been thinking that anything can become ritual, painting, or writing, or cooking or making a bed. All of it transforms, makes clean. Making dinner, alchemizes disparate things into a whole. I feel like I am always transmuting things. Always changing them. All day long."

–– Claire McMillan, American author 

Source: Claire McMillan. Alchemy of a Blackbird. Toronto: Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), 2023; p. 165. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 35. 

Quotes: Ann-Marie MacDonald

"Illusion is a comfortable garment thrown over an uncomfortable truth which, left too long covered, must rot."

–– Ann-Marie MacDonald (b. 1958), Canadian playwright, author, actress, and broadcast host 

Source: Ann-Marie MacDonald. Fayne. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022; p. 681. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 33.

Quotes: Sheldon Kopp

"You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences."

 –– Sheldon Kopp (1929-1999), American psychotherapist and author 

via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 33.

Quotes: Claire McMillan

"Despite her exhaustion, Remedios felt the energy of novelty. The trees were different here, the streets, the smells; it enlivened her. She'd been forced into change for so long now that it felt comforting, even as she landed in a new country with nothing but a suitcase."

–– Claire McMillan, American author 

Source: Claire McMillan. Alchemy of a Blackbird. Toronto: Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), 2023; p. 132. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 35. 

Quotes: Marcus Aurelius

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

–– Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34.

Quotes: Søren Kierkegaard

"What is anxiety? It is the next day. With whom, then, does the pagan contend in anxiety? With himself, with a delusion, because the next day is a powerless nothing if you yourself do not give it your strength." 

–– Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, and social critic 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34.

Quotes: Miss Marion Brook

 "You mustn't be afraid to fail or you'll never succeed." 

–– Miss Marion Brook, character on The Gilded Age 2.2 (American TV show)

Quotes: Gay Hendricks

"[B]aseball, like life, required the same letting go of expectations to really allow enjoyment."

–– Gay Hendricks (b. 1945), American psychologist and writer 

Source: Gay Hendricks, Lindsay Tinker. The Fourth Rule of Ten. New York: Hay House, 2015; p. 309. 

via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 74. 

Quotes: Carl Jung

"The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites."

–– Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist 

via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 63. 

Quotes: Shigehiro Oishi

"To foster psychological richness in our lives, we must lean into the unfamiliar, the risky, and the challenging. ... Being a generalist requires broader perspectives than being a specialist." 

–– Shigehiro Oishi, Japanese psychologist, professor and author

Source. Shigehiro Oishi. Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life. New York: Doubleday, 2025; p. 91.

 via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 50. 

Quotes: Jewel

"Hardwood grows slowly." 

–– Jewel (Kilcher) (b. 1974), American singer, songwriter, poet, actress, activist, author 

Source: Cal Newport. Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024; p. 170. 

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 79.

Quotes: C.S. Lewis

"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's "own," or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life –– the life God is sending one day by day." 

–– C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer, scholar, and lay theologian

 via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 45-6. 

Quotes: Anne Lamott

"The best way to change the world is to change your mind, which often requires feeding yourself. It makes for biochemical peace. It's almost like a prayer: to be needy, to eat, to taste, to be filled, building up instead of tearing down. You find energy to do something you hadn't expected to do, maybe even one of the holiest things: to go outside and stand under the stars, or to go for a walk in the morning, or in such hard times, both."

–– Anne Lamott (b. 1954), American writer 

Source: Anne Lamott. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. New York: Riverhead Books (Penguin Group), 2007; p. 252-253. 

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 93.

Quotes: Matthew Fox

"Creativity and imagination are not frosting on a cake: They are integral to our sustainability. They are survival mechanisms. They are of the essence of who we are. They constitute our deepest empowerment."

–– Matthew Fox (b. 1940), American priest, theologian, and author 

Source: Matthew Fox. Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2004 (2002); p. 31. 

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 65.

Quotes: M. Scott Peck

"As I have said, the purpose of emptying ourselves is to make room for the new. The only reason to give up something is to gain something better. Peace is undeniably better than war. Thus we must ask, "Of what do we have to empty ourselves in order to gain peace?" What traditional attitudes and styles of behaviour must we lay aside? What outmoded viewpoints, policies, understandings, and resentments are we still carrying around? To what hidden opportunities must we be open and empty?"

–– M. Scott Peck (1936-2005), American psychiatrist and author 

Source: M. Scott Peck. The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. New York: Touchstone, 1987; p. 225. 

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, 57.

Quotes: Buddhist saying

"Every arrow that hits the bull's eye is the result of one hundred misses" 

– Buddhist saying 

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 90.

Quotes: Euripides

"There is in the worst of failure the best chances for a happy change." 

–– Euripides (c. 480-406 B.C.), Greek playwright

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 88.

Quotes: Michael Kimmelman

"Contrary to the myth that artists are eccentrics, leaping from one peak of inspiration to another, [Philip] Pearlstein exemplifies the greater truth that most artists live as they work: incrementally, day by day, in the same way that they build up a canvas or chisel a sculpture. They are creatures of habit. The dancer Twyla Tharp wakes up every morning at five-thirty and takes a cab to the gym –– a trite ritual, but as she has written, "a lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they begin their creative day." ... Novelty in creative endeavours usually arises from routine –– you have to be familiar with something before you know what is  novel." 

–– Michael Kimmelman (b. 1958), American critic and journalist 

Source: Michael Kimmelman. The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa. New York: Penguin Press, 2005; p. 150-151.

via Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 116. 

Quotes: Sam Keen

"What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask." 

–– Sam Keen (1931-2025), American author, academic and philosopher

via Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 117. 

Quotes: Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"Small things with great love. ... It is not how much we do, but how much love we put into the doing. And it is not how much we give, but how much love we put into the giving. To God there is nothing small."  

–– Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), Albanian-born Indian Roman Catholic nun 

via Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 117.