Author: Kelsey Mihachik

“You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.” – pg. xi

“If you’re unhappy, that’s on you.” – pg. 5

“Moving doesn’t change who you are. It only changes the view outside your window.” – pg. 7

“When you really want something, you will find a way. When you don’t really want something, you’ll find an excuse.” – pg. 14

“In fact, the stones we most often try and fling at others are the ones that have been thrown at us.” – pg. 35

“The issue wasn’t that I didn’t know who I was; the problem was that I didn’t know who I had allowed myself to become.” – pg. 51

“Very few roads to love are easy to navigate.” – pg. 52

“Sometimes choosing to walk away, even if it means breaking your own heart, can be the greatest act of self-love you have access to.” – pg. 53

“That’s the incredible part about your dreams: nobody gets to tell you how big they can be.” – pg. 58

“That is what it boils down to: faith. The belief that your life will unfold as it was meant to, even when it unfolds into something painful and difficult to navigate.” – pg. 108

“You’ve already done little things and big things… Goals you accomplished years ago that are on someone else’s bucket list. Focus on what you have done. […] When you force yourself to admit all the things you have accomplished, you’ll realize that it’s wrong to be so hard on yourself for all the things you haven’t.” – pg. 110

“If we choose to stay underwater without kicking our way to the surface, we eventually forget how to swim.” – pg. 117

“There are hundreds of ways to lose yourself, but the easiest of them is refusing to acknowledge who you truly are in the first place. You – the real you – is not an accident.” – pg. 132

“Calling your shot is powerful when you’re chasing down a dream, but it’s also not enough. You have to spend real time focusing on everything you can about that dream. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How much detail can you imagine? How real can you make it in your own mind?” – pg. 139

“When you’re creating something from your heart, you do it because you can’t not do it.” – pg. 147

“I will not let a nightmare have more power than my dreams.” – pg. 155

“Someday I’ll hold my daughter in my arms and I’ll understand why I waited for her.” – pg. 172

“You’ve got a lifetime of negative talk in your head playing on repeat. You need to replace that voice with something positive. […] So come up with a mantra and say it to yourself a thousand times a day until it becomes real.” – pg. 185

“I heard once that every author has a theme.” – pg. 211

“When we watch, when we listen, we’re not getting away from the world. We’re actually digging in.” – pg. 15

“Making someone laugh is a kind of connection. So is laughing together with other people. So is realizing that other people are amused at or inspired by or curious about the same things you are.” – pg. 63

“When you watch a movie, what you’re looking for on a subconscious level is a piece of yourself to be reflected at you.” – pg. 75

“I don’t want to compete, I want to connect.” – pg. 90

“You connect with people when you’re authentic – when you do things the way that comes naturally.” – pg. 97

“I’m constantly trying to understand who I am so that I can turn the inspiration in my heart into something tangible, into a feeling that can be experienced by someone else.” – pg. 117

“You have to work with people who know how to work hard, and you have to work harder than everyone else.” – pg. 117

“If you want to do something, if you want to make something, if you want to create something, I’ve learned that you can’t be afraid to do it wrong.” – pg. 117

“It takes a lot of hard work to make it look easy.” – pg. 117

“One thing I’ve learned is that I have to let the feelings or ideas that inspire me become what they want to be.” – pg. 125

“You have to understand what makes it resonate.” – pg. 126

“Like Miles Davis said, ‘It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.’ It’s the space between the notes that makes the music.” – pg. 135

“I said, ‘This is why [SexyBack is] going to work. It doesn’t sound like anybody. But it sounds like somebody.’ […] I wanted people to say those words, and feel like they were whoever that character was in that song, however they imagine him to be.” – pg. 140

“The coolest people are the ones who are doing something they’re excited about.” – pg. 164

“I would like to stay in a place where I don’t know exactly what I am, or what I am doing, because I would get to continually discover myself within that.” – pg. 211

“They want to pin you down so they can understand you. They want you to make it easy for them. They want you to walk in a straight line. I say, walk your own line.” – pg. 212

“If I could give a young artist advice about their influences, it would be this: Embrace them.” – pg. 228

“No matter what gets thrown at you, you catch it. You learn from it. And you figure out how to throw it back.” – pg. 228

“As I hit twenty-six and twenty-seven and twenty-eight, I was three different people within those years.” – pg. 234

“I used to think we want to be loved for what we are, but maybe more now, I think we want to be loved for what we aren’t. I think we want to be loved for all our fucked up shit.” – pg. 241

“Everything you’re doing as an adult is to try to heal whatever you’ve built up from our childhood.” – pg. 276

“No one had known but me. That had to change, and I was ending the silence right then and there before I let the secrecy go too far. It was such a relief to finally say those things out loud. But it was hard.” – pg. 28

“He later described watching his famous No. 3 car going around the track with someone else behind the wheel as being like ‘watching your wife go on a date with some other guy.’ I have to say that Dad’s assessment was pretty accurate.” – pg. 46

“The biggest lesson I had learned was that I would be honest with myself and everyone else if I ever found myself in that condition again.” – pg. 49

“We’d experienced something together, and we were stronger for it.” – pg. 51

“I told you my mind never stops. It’s always the loudest when I’m in bed.” – pg. 61

“I sound downright nostalgic. I think that’s a pretty big indicator that I was beginning to think about the end of my career, and it was probably happening much sooner than later.” – pg. 66

“I couldn’t make them understand my sense of urgency because I was never being fully honest with them.” – pg. 77

“I’m a lot of things, but sad isn’t one of them.” – pg. 86

“But if someone really loves you, then they also appreciate the things that you love. Amy knew from the very beginning that I loved racing. She was never going to be the person to get in the way of that, even during the times when racing didn’t love me back.” – pg. 106

“I didn’t let myself think about what-ifs when it came to the future. But I sure did a lot of thinking about the what-ifs of the past.” – pg. 129

“I have always had such a great appreciation for all of the people who work so hard just to take care of me and make sure I am where I’m supposed to be and do what I’m supposed to do when I get there.” – pg. 150

“Life’s hurdles come in a variety of forms, none of which are easy. You can prevail.” – pg. 178

“I’m looking forward to seeing you just because you’re you, for no other reason.” – pg. 57

“I don’t quite know who I am, and I have to find out.” – pg. 75

“I know that if I stay in this business I am in for even worse times, and this is something I have to decide for myself — is it all worth it?” – pg. 88

“For his whole life, it was about finding himself. Like the search for himself. And I think, when he was trying to figure out who he was as a comedian, he was trying to figure out himself. […] Garry in life, and in his act, would circle around things. And circle around things. And circle around things. He didn’t care how funny. […] The idea for him wasn’t just to kill in the room. It was to get closer to some idea that he had about himself.” – Ed Solomon, pg. 97

“He approached it from a place of How empty am I? Garry felt like he had finished a journey, and in a way, he was right. I think his whole methodology was to basically fall over the finish line for something.” – John Markus, pg. 110

“The theme itself was the structure of the show, which was breaking the conventions.” – pg. 168

“Don’t identify yourself with your career. You are you. You are not your job.” – pg. 193

“The human condition is hilariously awful.” – pg. 213

“[Garry] took everything that he didn’t want to be in himself and put it in this character. And then mocked it and said, Isn’t this a terrible way to live?” – Judd Apatow, pg. 253

“Garry was such a good writer that it was impossible to rise to his level and have him be satisfied. For the most part you were going to disappoint him because it was like painting with Picasso and he would go, ‘Why are you using red?’ And there was no way to anticipate exactly what he would like and then it would frustrate him.” – Judd Apatow, pg. 257

“It is a show about people trying to get love, and that shit gets in the way. They’re trying to figure out, with a little lack of awareness, how to get past that shit to get to the love.” – pg. 279

“There are people who seek truth and there are people who manipulate truth for their own good. That’s the conflict in life.” – pg. 295

“Just fake it. But Garry could not do that, and the fact that he would bring that to bear on the show, on that scene – his own deep insecurity about not being that hero – was so beautiful and heartbreaking to me.” – David Duchovny, pg. 325

“Garry always used people as touch points. To echolocate or to orient himself. He was just looking to get some sense of sonar about, like, Where am I?” – Ed Solomon, pg. 335

“Except what I really did is, I hadn’t really lived, I’d devoted myself to working, so then I started traveling and leading a life that involved relationships, good relationships with good people.” – pg. 351

“Because like all comics, at some point you start going, Can I survive without it? Who am I without it? […] It’s fucking terrifying. Because what if the train leaves and you can never get back on? That’s the key.” – Jim Carrey, pg. 353

“Garry was a guy that people asked about. If you were known as one of Garry’s friends, people would ask you about Garry.” – David Duchovny, pg. 370

“The journals are all about understanding that this path you and I are talking about now is the most important thing in life. And that show business or anything else is secondary.” – pg. 377

“He went on to explain what [the Ensō] meant for him: that things don’t always have to come to completion. It’s the process. […] He would talk about the process of getting from this point to this point. That’s where the intuition is, that’s where the wisdom is, that’s where you stumble and fall and you get back up.” – Beth D’Angelo, pg. 380

“They say if you worry about the past it’s depression, and if you stress about the future it’s anxiety, and that’s why it’s important to be in the moment.” – Sarah Silverman, pg. 387

“All my journey is is to be authentically who I am. Not trying to be somebody else under all circumstances. […] The whole world is confused because they’re trying to be somebody else. To be your true self takes enormous work.” – pg. 389

“The only UFOs we see are the ones that slow down for a moment to stare the way we all do when there’s an accident on the side of the road.” – pg. 393

“Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story.” – pg. 412

“Humor comes from an objective place, which is where the meditation is: the silence.” – pg. 420

“I read somewhere that grief is not a sign of weakness. Grief is just the price you pay to love someone, and I could tell you that Garry was very, very expensive. And that fucker bankrupted me.” – Kevin Nealon, pg. 443

“The great ones show you what you can get away with. The shitty ones remind you what never to bother with.” – pg. 18

“Any true creative endeavor demands constant evolution, growth, experimentation, and challenge.” – pg. 24

“Movies, to him and the majority of the planet, are an enhancement to a life. The way a glass of wine complements a dinner. I’m the other way around. I’m the kind of person who eats a few bites of food so that my stomach can handle the full bottle of wine I’m about to drink.” – pg. 122

“And it hits me, sitting there with my friends, that for all of our bluster and detailed, exotic knowledge about film, we aren’t contributing anything to film.” – pg. 161

“For whatever it’s worth, it’s never too late – or in my case too early – to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same: there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. And if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

Link to video here.

“My advice to stuck writers who are on their own is to get unstuck by proving how bad you are. Stop trying to prove that you’re a good writer to yourself. That’s what’s probably got you stuck. Because no matter how good you get, you’re always going to think that you should be better than you are… because you want to be a good writer. And you will be by thinking that, but it’s not going to get you writing right now, and the only thing that’s going to make you get better is practicing. And the only thing you’re gonna be able to write right now is something worse than what you think you should be writing. So you have to stop thinking about the thing that you’re eventually gonna be able to do, and you have to start thinking about the thing that you’re terrified you will do – because that will go by very quickly.” – Dan Harmon

Another book that I didn’t find any good pull quotes in, but that I’m happy to have read.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.” – pg. 28

“If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.” – pg. 35

“The main reason he had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.” – pg. 62

“I don’t know what I’m looking for. […] I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.” – pg. 97

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I don’t know what this great thing I’m meant to be doing is, and it looks to me as if I was supposed not to know.” – pg. 164

“Every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question, ‘How can we eat?’, the second by the question, ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question, ‘Where shall we have lunch?'” – pg. 245-246

“In an infinite Universe anything can happen. Even survival. Strange but true.” – pg. 275

“How can you have money if none of you actually produces anything?” – pg. 299

“No, I’m very ordinary. But some very strange things have happened to me. You could say I’m more differed from differing.” – pg. 309

Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in.” – pg. 315

“There is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.” – pg. 321

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“One effect that lingered, though, was his joy at being back.” – pg. 518

“Life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers to the questions you continually ask of it.” – pg. 541

“Put away your worries, the world is a good and perfect place. It is in fact very easy.” – pg. 551

“You can’t sustain a story, you know, when the only news is the continuing absence of whatever it is the story’s about.” – pg. 576

“A scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.” – pg. 587

Mostly Harmless

“Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy.” – pg. 641

“Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.” – pg. 669

“The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.” – pg. 699

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.” – pg. 720

“Part of solving any problem […] was realizing that you had it.” – pg. 791

“Taking care of yourself is the single most important connection you can make in your life.” – pg. xv

“Don’t wait for happy to happen.” – pg. xix

“You need to identify your fears so they become concrete, and don’t stay muddled and cloudy in your head.” – pg. 23

“When we harbor the negative, we get the negative. When we build the positive, we attract the positive.” – pg. 63

“If you don’t put your needs, your desires, and your dreams first, then you will not succeed.” – pg. 81

“Having some stress is actually good – it keeps us on our toes and builds our emotional endurance.” – pg. 149

“I rarely get stuck in the phase of ‘I wish I had.’ I am much more comfortable in ‘I’m so lucky I have.’” – pg. 190

“Finding pleasure is enjoying the process and not being attached to the outcome.” – pg. 194

“Being motivated to start something feels easy; staying motivated after the novelty wanes is the hard part.” – pg. 214