Barbara Sher Quotes

Resentment is weak and lowers your self-esteem.

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do-can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops or we can make music.

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.

You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.

And be grateful that you’re a Scanner. Not everyone can have this much fun with nothing but what’s between her ears.

Since then I’ve come to believe you don’t always have to use things you love, and it’s not always so practical to be so practical. Now that I’ve grown up, I realize that all that delicious dilettantism pays its way as much as any degree in medicine or engineering, by making me remember every day—whenever I pick up a book or watch the Science Channel or try to read a map of Asia for no particular reason—that life is amazing and there is no end to the wonder of it.

Every time you worry that you could get trapped in some kind of work you don't care about, you're dealing with the problem of meaningfulness. I guarantee that in the back of your mind is the thought that somehow you have to make a contribution to something, be acknowledged, do something that matters--or you're just fooling around.