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"To celebrate man is to celebrate God."
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Personal Development

"Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps."
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Personal Development

"The smell of roasting meat rose from the street stalls in a sizzle and a fiddle player begged for coin as he rasped a haunting melody. Life could not be more perfect."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Another part of the Puritan legacy is the belief that no one should have joy or abundance until everyone does, a belief that austere at one end, in the deprivation it endorses, and fantastical in the other, since it awaits a universal utopia. Joy sneaks in anyway, abundance cascades forth uninvited...Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Joy cannot be confused with the mere absence sorrow, misinterpreted as experiencing minimal despair, or misunderstood as living without crippling trepidation. Bliss necessarily encompasses uncompromising acceptance of life's defining permutations. Emotional harmony necessitates beholding the pleasant and unpleasant exigencies of life while expressing unstinting appreciation for the ordinary and the extraordinary events in our lives. Joyfulness transcends the variations in physical and emotional demands exerted upon us. Elation for life allows us to rise above environmental determinates and associated stresses that might otherwise vex our souls including death and other sorrowful events."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Wherever you go, be the thunder of joy and the wind of optimism."
Author Name
Personal Development

"For me, the joy of doing it is doodling when I want to. But if I had to do it, I'd lose the joy."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Gladness comes from God."
Author Name
Personal Development

"Happiness must be a jealous pet. When you try seeking yours out, it tends to keep hidden. But as soon as you turn to help a friend find his, your own happiness comes bounding out of the darkness like some crazed animal."
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Personal Development
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"I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers."
People


"There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry."
Reading


"There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints."
Life


"I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step."
Writing


"If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer."
Love


"I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!"
Dream


"The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings."
Time


"It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded."
Education


"If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level."
Trust


"People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable."
People
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