Author: Kelsey Mihachik

“For a long period of time, you go through this period of swearing you will never make the same mistakes as your parents. But then you realize that they didn’t really make mistakes. They just did what had to be done. That’s just the way it works out sometimes.” – Tom Hanks, pg. 42

“How romantic to learn that your best-friend-turned-lover adores you for you. Your personalities. Your eccentricities.” – pg. 83

“It takes courage to love. And there’s always going to be problems. And you have to have a certain faith that the problems will be solved.” – Shanley, pg. 101

“You just have to make it up as you go along and hope you don’t screw it up too horribly.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 107

“[Tom] thought Sleepless wasn’t so much about the fate as the idea that ‘one person’s second chance can be the other person’s first.'” – pg. 132

“I don’t think that there’s a million people you can fall in love with… I actually think to make a great match is a very lucky thing.” – Delia Ephron, pg. 174

“There’s no one who’s more romantic than a cynic.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 175

“The idea that there is someone out there that maybe no one else can touch, for you.” – David Word, pg. 198

“Many of life’s flops, like marriages, are obvious in retrospect. If you knew it, you wouldn’t do it, but you didn’t, so you did.” – Delia Ephron, pg. 212

“The older you get, you’re going to realize that things change and there’s not very much that you can do about it.” – Nora Ephron, pg. 269

“The Ephron woman makes us feel less alone in a man’s world – and inspires us not to give up.” – pg. 295

“It’s an incredible gift to be able to make your own fun.” – pg. 12

“You cannot just blithely drift through life in your canoe whilst turning a blind eye to the bullshit going on around you.” – pg. 67

“Such a sunny disposition can make a body powerfully stupid some of the time, but it’s mostly worked out for me so far.” – pg. 133

“No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do.” – pg. 174

“Engage in romantic love. It truly makes life worth living. Romance affords you the opportunity to do a lot of giving, which I believe I have read is said to be better than receiving.” – pg. 255

“Make your life happy. Sounds pretty simple, right?” – pg. 311

“I don’t achieve my happiness by taking it easy, but instead by using my time and abilities to be productive.” – pg. 319

“My attitude was I’ll strike whenever I want to because I’ll just make the iron hot whenever I damn well please.” – pg. 143

“It was a way of acknowledging how much we loved what we got to do, and how much we wanted to hold onto it.” – pg. 159

“Sometimes drinking away your problems in a bar is exactly the right way to solve them.” – pg. 188

“For a guy who has spent pretty much his whole life dedicated to extremes, it’s a daily challenge not to mistake serenity for boredom.” – pg. 319

“But if I’m going to stay sober and stay sane, I need to accept that there will come a day when nothing comes next. Eventually it all ends. I’d be lying if I said I was okay with that right now. Hell, I may never be. But I’m trying.” – pg. 322

“Something terrible can happen to you, and yet, the day after this something terrible, the sun still rises, and life goes on. And therefore, so must you.” – pg. 49

“Your first major work experience tends to be formative, something you remember vividly for the rest of your life.” – pg. 80

“I think that so many of us went on to bigger things because we were there for each other early: friends and friendly competitors, pushing ourselves to heights we would’ve never reached individually.” – pg. 86

“Beyond the amount-of-work aspect, is your work creatively fulfilling? Innate creativity is a wonderful blessing.” – pg. 127

“If I was going to make it in the movies, I’d have to be brave enough to be me.” – pg. 198

“The mark of a man is not just how he survives it all but also what wisdom he’s gained from the experience.” – pg. 310

“When you start your career, you worry about how you’re going to pay the rent. But when that’s covered, you feel an even greater pressure: How do you stay interested?” – pg. 311

“As for the grander questions, their answers will surely reveal themselves. Someday. In a fleeting moment.” – pg. 318

“New experiences and ideas kept – and keep – me alive.” – pg. 42

“Get your shit together so you can help others. It’s all I really ever wanted to do: figure out what I’m good at and put it out into the world.” – pg. 48

“I no longer wanted to write like them. I wanted to write like me.” – pg. 106

“It didn’t matter who initiated the idea. It only mattered that we made the idea the best it could become.” – pg. 233

“Science is always your friend. Remember that. Whenever you need to combat society’s self-righteous, imposing, and overly judgmental morality – what would Jesus do, protecting the environment, respecting other people, etc. – a strong scientific defense will usually give you a way out. It’s hard to argue with facts. Still, many people will try.” – pg. 8

“We murder, maim, spread disease, and scare the shit out of one another as much as any lion, tiger, or bear ever has.” – pg. 14

“But even if they’re willing to comply, the more people you fold into your scheme, the worse everything gets.” – pg. 45

“Women are just like us. Consciously or unconsciously, they are always looking for something better. Even good girls will look for something better if you give them a reason.” – pg. 53

“You are the one person you should never lie to. You spend enough time bullshitting other people. You’re the home team. Never fuck with the home team.” – pg. 83

“Crazy women are just crazy, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. So stop beating yourself up and trying to figure it out.” – pg. 178

“Kids of the world deserve parents who are living vital, connected, passionate lives, in partnership with a supportive mate.” – pg. 27

“Everyone who is at all successful in comedy has had a secret comedy dork life in their adolescence.” – pg. 65

“Sometimes the people you need come into your life at just the right time.” – pg. 91

“So many things occur in the course of our lives that upon reflection they feel like they were meant to happen.” – pg. 103

“Many of us come to a time in our lives when the beliefs we grew up with collide with the reality of the world we find ourselves living in. It’s a common theme for the twentysomething-or-other.” – pg. 148

“Happiness is not something ‘just around the corner’ or ‘over the hill’ or that can be enjoyed as soon as you have a certain level of material comfort. It’s a moment-to-moment choice. Joy and contentment come from daily, hourly, minutely, secondly decisions to be grateful for what you have.” – pg. 190

“I knew that ultimately I needed to be myself, and screw whatever other people thought of me.” – pg. 197

“Sometimes repeated rejection is simply the All-Encompassing Creative Life Force preparing you for something greater, a different and grander plan.” – pg. 214

“There’s kind of a strange paradox in happiness. The more we seek it for ourselves, the harder it often is to find.” – pg. 285

“When you are able to tell your own story, you heal yourself.” – pg. 291

“I firmly believe that everyone should get punched in the face at least once in their life. It builds character. Getting your ass kicked teaches you that your body isn’t a glass menagerie figurine that you could shatter at any trauma. You gotta get lumped up sometimes. Then heal and know you are alright.” – pg. 103

“There are moments in a life that make you think maybe there’s a thread of meaning through this bumbling little experience. Seconds and inches that peel open the epidermis of the universe to reveal the intricate nervous system of interconnectivity that lies within. Things that make you say, ‘There might be something to this God thing after all.’ Little God moments.” – pg. 107

“The great irony of the addict is that the thing he takes, which is the only thing that has ever made life feel good, stops working long before he considers the possibility of life without it.” – pg. 256

“Why that day was any different, I don’t know. There comes a time. The pain of existence transcends the fear of change. There comes a time.” – pg. 282

“Everyone can agree that surfing is cool. […] I mean, what else is there? What else is life but a ceaseless ride forward where the best you can hope for is to keep some composure, some control of yourself, express your will in shifting tensions and harmonies with the overpowering, indifferent momentum until you’re knocked off or deposited and the whole experience vanishes, erasing itself behind you as the wave collapses, absorbed back into the formless spirit that gave it rise?” – pg. 105

“The experience you get isn’t always the experience you went looking for. What you were after sometimes turns out not to be the point. But who cares? What matters is the trip you took to get there.” – pg. 126

“Aren’t we all just travelers on a trip where the purpose, if there is one, is mysterious to us?” – pg. 181

“I’m no explorer, just a curious dope on a wide-eyed stumble.” – pg. 199

“Animals are great and all, but what humans get up to – that’s what’s really great to be a part of.” – pg. 241

“But when I scrolled back through my memory, of all the wonders I’d experienced, what mattered more than anything was people. Even strangers had become, in a few hours, more important to me than any wonder I saw, any mountain or ruin. And those were strangers. What about the people I loved? The people I loved the most were all back in the United States. They were hanging out in Los Angeles, drinking in New York, going to bed in Needham, Massachusetts. People are what’s best in the world, I say. People are what’s most interesting, too.” – pg. 295

“Good quarterbacks were hard to find. Great quarterbacks were untouchable. Quarterbacks who understood the cap game and how to motivate their teammates were perhaps one of a kind.” – pg. 134

“Humility usually comes from experiencing the bitterness of failure, not being lectured about it.” – pg. 144

“Never let your opponent define what the game is about.” – pg. 179

“At the genesis of winning is an understanding of how things and people work.” – pg. 301

“Change is inevitable and necessary. Sometimes it is also messy and infuriating.” – pg. 379

“Sit around too long and the next trend, the next great talent, the next rule change, will make you suddenly irrelevant. Adapt or be consumed.” – pg. 386