“But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.”
Source: Ladder of Years
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Anne Tyler 22
American novelist 1941Related quotes
"Artistic Freedom"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
Context: I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.
Source: The Best of Me
Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)
Source: The Human Comedy (1943)
Context: Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.
“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”
Quoted in Thoughts (1901) by Jessie K. Freeman and Sarah S. B. Yule, p. 83, and in Collect Writings of Russell H. Conwell (1925), Vol. 1, p. 396
Context: Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. We must purposely be kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. The heart which goes out of itself gets large and full. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.