Quotes of Note

Shared at the April 2011 IPEP faculty retreat...

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – Bill Cosby

“ E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.” – Anne Lamott

“The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there, except for the birds that sang best.”

“I was taught by one of the all-time greats of pediatric critical care medicine to conspicuously take off my watch when going in to a family conference. These days, I need to take off my watch, my pager, my cell phone and my palm pilot in order to convey the equivalent message to the parents of a sick child. But the message is the same my teacher taught me: stop, be quiet, listen.” - A physician referring to Dr. David Todres

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

“The absence of options clears the mind.”

“Talk carefully. Listen more carefully.”

From the Talmud: “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers …‘grow, grow’.”

“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." – Shunryu Suzuki

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too much high spirit to be encumbered with your own nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I am only one; but I am still one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” – Helen Keller

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen Covey

“Learning is optional. But so is survival.” - W. Edwards Deming

From “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

“Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon.” – Mizuta Masahide