"Almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

-Steve Jobs


"Every movement that ever worked came from civil movements, from compassion, from working smarter and not harder, from working every day with your hands to build a better future for everybody, not just people like you. Every movement that ever backlashed came from thinking your shouts outweighed everybody else -- that your pain was louder or stronger or more worthy of being satisfied, just because it was yours. Every war that ever happened came from a simple trick of memory: that any amount of difference could ever outweigh the things we have in common. Everything that bridges that gap is just a process of remembering to bridge the gap; to remind the people around you that it doesn't exist. To remember the possibility of joy. Every bit of pain that ever happened to anybody in the world resulted from just this: the sin, the cancer, the awful confusion and heavy responsibility of ever thinking you were alone. You aren't. You never were."

- From an American Idol recap by Jacob @ TWoP



"What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."

- Dave Eggers