Week of November 29, 2020:
“I hate false modesty. It’s just another way to lie.”
– Colette from Disney’s Ratatouille
I recently re-watched the 2007 Disney movie Ratatouille, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the dialogue and storyline were even better than I remembered. This quote in particular caught my attention because of its blunt phrasing. It made me have one of those “huh, I guess that’s actually pretty true now that you say it like that!” moments, so I felt inspired to share it here. For me, the quote means that, though modesty and remaining humble are virtuous traits, there’s also nothing wrong with being proud of yourself and celebrating your own strengths. This is a lesson I’ve been trying to remind myself of more often, too. After all, as Colette points out, downplaying achievements can often have the opposite effect of modesty: it comes across disingenuous. More generally, I think the quote is saying that pretending to be virtuous is no better than just being outright not-virtuous.
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Week of November 1, 2020:
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”
– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist about a month ago, and this quote really resonated with me, particularly because I’ve been working on medical school applications the last few months. The application cycle can sometimes feel like an emotional roller coaster—some days, I’m excited about all the potential opportunities out there, while other days, I just don’t feel “good enough” to deserve any of them. This quote was a welcome reminder that there are people out there who want to see me succeed and that with hard work, perseverance, and their support, I will eventually reach my goals.
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Week of June 21, 2020:
“It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy’s supplications
and a father’s love add up to silence.“– Li-Young Lee, “A Story”
This quotation comes from a poem titled “A Story” by Indonesian-Chinese American poet Li-Young Lee. The premise of the poem is that a man’s son asks his dad to tell him a story, but the man struggles to come up with one and they end up sitting in silence instead. I like the poem because of the way it captures feelings that are sometimes too difficult to say out loud. The poem is at once a moment of silence and a moment filled with lots of unspoken ideas. As someone who tends to be on the quieter side myself, I like the way the poem explains the source of silence and ultimately equates it with love. You can read the full poem here.
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Week of March 29, 2020:
“I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.”
– Frida Kahlo
One upside to this time of social distancing—besides the clear public health benefit and need—is that it will hopefully give us all more time for personal introspection. Being physically alone or even just surrounded by fewer people is not easy, especially when we are used to interacting with lots of different individuals all day. However, I’m challenging myself to use this time as an opportunity to get to know myself better. Quarantine time means more time for personal reflection, writing, reading, and previously neglected hobbies. As Frida Kahlo puts it, let’s all try to make ourselves the “subject [we] want to know better” during these trying weeks.
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Week of October 20, 2019:
“Perhaps if we say it straight, we suspect, if we express our sentiments too excessively or too directly, we’ll find we’re nothing but banal”
– Leslie Jamison, “In Defense of Saccharin(e)”
This quote comes from a reading I had for English class the week after I published my blog post “On Celebrating Change.” One major challenge I had to overcome in writing this post was deciding how to share my story in a way that wouldn’t be banal. I realized eventually, however, that some cliches in my writing would simply be inevitable—there are many coming out stories in literature today that writing one in a completely original way is nearly impossible—and that these cliches could actually be good, because they point to a shared human experience among individuals who share an identity that itself can sometimes feel anomalous. Reading this piece by Leslie Jamison reminded me of this challenge—or perhaps more accurately, as Jamison puts it later in the piece, this fear—I faced myself as a personal narrative writer. I found myself questioning again, just as Jamison does in her piece, whether being banal really is such a bad thing, or if banality can sometimes actually be a way of building greater empathy and connection. Everything is always in some way cliche or banal because, as much as we may try to prove otherwise, we are all a lot more alike as humans than we are completely different.
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Week of September 29, 2019:
“Close your eyes, not your mind”
– Adam Lambert, “For Your Entertainment”
The lyric above, from Adam Lambert’s debut album, has always stood out to me because it can take on so many different meanings. We close our eyes when we kiss someone, when we dream, when we meditate, and when we pray. For some, this lyric may be about sexual experimentation, à la Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” For others, it may be a reminder to be more open-minded in your dreams and aspirations. Still, for others it might be a call to remain open-minded and optimistic in a stressful or difficult moment, or even to be more open-minded in your beliefs. Regardless of how you interpret the lyric, I think it’s got some pretty good advice behind it.
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Week of July 28, 2019:
“Everything I learned, I learned from the movies”
– Audrey Hepburn
I first discovered this quote on a scratch-off movie bucket list poster my friend gave me for my birthday last year. Though admittedly I still haven’t seen any Audrey Hepburn films, I think this quote fits nicely with the theme of my latest blog post that television and other forms of media can teach us a lot. I do wonder what exactly Hepburn meant by this quote—whether she’s suggesting that she learned everything she knows from watching movies, or whether the term “movies” is a stand-in for Hollywood as a whole, an institution that would have taught her a lot about hard work, desire, luck, and other elements of the human condition.
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Week of July 7, 2019:
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose”
– Dolly Parton
A friendly reminder to love yourself and be confident in who you are! Probably would have been more appropriate last month during the Pride celebrations, but better late than never. I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about Dolly Parton other than some of her songs, but I first heard this quote of hers in the Netflix original movie Dumplin’ and it really resonated with me.
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Week of May 26, 2019:
“It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
This is a quote I go back to often because I really like Fitzgerald’s word choice of “carelessness.” I have a lot of trouble with the idea of calling a person either good or bad—besides being vague, I think the terms create too much of a binary. I think “careless,” on the other hand, is a perfect way to describe a subset of “bad people” who do hurtful things because they don’t know any better, even though maybe they should. The imagery here—”smash[ing] up things and creatures;” leaving behind a mess—makes the passage all the more powerful.
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Week of May 19, 2019:
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
– Unknown
Though this quote is often attributed to either Pablo Picasso or Shakespeare, its actual author is unknown. I think currently, I’m in the stage of life where I’m still trying to find and refine my gifts, whether those be in biology, medicine, writing, or other fields. Some of my favorite extracurricular activities in college have been ones such as CrimsonEMS and Writing Center tutoring that have allowed me to “give [these gifts] away,” at least to the extent that I’m currently capable of doing as only an undergrad, to help my peers and the greater community.
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Week of May 12, 2019:
“Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be. The measure of a person, a hero, is how they succeed at being who they are”
– Frigga, mother of Thor, from Avengers: Endgame
This is not a spoiler, I promise! This quote comes from one of my favorite scenes from the latest Avengers movie, Endgame, in which Thor, in the midst of an identity crisis, is comforted by his mother, Frigga. It touches on a similar conflict between perception and reality that I discuss in my post this week, “On Koalas,” and it’s also just a touching message that no matter where you’re at in life, as long as you stay true to yourself, you will succeed eventually. That this quote comes from Thor’s mother seems especially appropriate, given that today is Mother’s Day.
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Week of April 14, 2019:
“So don’t you worry your pretty little mind,
People throw rocks at things that shine”– Taylor Swift, “Ours”
This is always the song lyric I go to when I’m feeling down or underappreciated. Thanks, T Swift, for reminding us to be confident in who we are, what we have, and what we believe in!
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Week of March 17, 2019:
“If you become too readily available to people, they begin to take you for granted; pull away, and they will clamor for you. It’s a subconscious thing our society has created in the minds of the masses. This is why most of the “greats” didn’t become recognized until after their death. If you’re overlook [sic], rejoice, maybe you’re one of the future greats”
– Dara Reidyr
Dedicated to all the great people in my life who do kind little things every day. I appreciate you!
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Week of March 10, 2019:
“This is my real secret to being a joyful person: I make my life easy. I spend more time being grateful for what I have instead of focusing on what isn’t working. I no longer believe that people have to do things my way and that I have to be perfect.”
– Ellen DeGeneres
Some great life advice from one of my favorite celebrities—much needed as the semester starts to heat up these weeks before and after spring break!
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Week of February 10, 2019:
“If you lose a moment, you might lose a lot”
– Hillary Duff, “Why Not”
Thanks, Spotify, for suggesting this 2003 throwback from the Lizzie McGuire soundtrack! In all seriousness, though, I like the message behind this quote a lot. It’s got a very carpe diem, shoot-your-shot type vibe to it that makes the line (and the song as a whole) uplifting and inspirational (as much as a Disney Channel pop song can be).
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Week of February 3, 2019:
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
– C.S. Lewis
The source of this quote is not actually known for sure; it is often attributed to C.S. Lewis, but there are sources that disagree. In either case, I think the sentiment is a good one, especially for the start of a new semester. You may not be able to change what happened in the fall at the start of the academic year, but the spring is a time to start afresh and learn from the lessons and growth that took place over fall and winter.
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Week of December 23, 2018:
“When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself… do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy.”
– Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Because I couldn’t fit all the many beautifully-written quotes from When Breath Becomes Air into a single blog post. This is the final line of the memoir, addressed to Kalanithi’s daughter, born just six months before he passed away.
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Week of December 9, 2018:
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
– Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Reading period/finals week feels. ‘Nuff said.
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Week of November 18, 2018:
“When you go into the ER, one of the first things they ask you to do is rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, and from there they decide which drugs to use and how quickly to use them. I’d been asked this question hundreds of times over the years, and I remember once early on when I couldn’t get my breath and it felt like my chest was on fire, flames licking the inside of my ribs fighting for a way to burn out of my body, my parents took me to the ER. Nurse asked me about the pain, and I couldn’t even speak, so I held up nine fingers.
Later, after they’d given me something, the nurse came in and she was kind of stroking my head while she took my blood pressure and said, ‘You know how I know you’re a fighter? You called a ten a nine.'”
– Hazel from John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars
We’re capable of overcoming a lot when we take on a fighter mindset, and this passage is a reminder of that. The connection between physical pain and mental strength has always been something that has interested me, especially as someone who is fascinated by neuroscience and the brain. Individuals each perceive physical pain so differently from one another; some people experience physical pain as a result of emotional pain, while others mask their physical pain by convincing themselves emotionally that they are okay. I think I tend to fall in this latter group more often, and this certainly has both its upsides and downsides. I think it makes me generally pretty resilient and able to withstand a lot, but it also means I’m a lot more reluctant to seek help for something when I really should. This connection is also something I think a lot about as an EMT, especially when a patient’s underlying reason for seeking medical attention is not easily diagnosable.
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Week of November 4, 2018:
“Now I understand that one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.”
– Charlie from Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon
This quote comes from my favorite novel, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, which tells the story of a man with intellectual disabilities who undergoes an experimental surgery alongside a lab mouse (Algernon) to increase his intelligence. I like this quote mostly because I think it sums up the college experience quite well. In Neuroscience, my field of study, for example, there is so much we don’t know about the brain and even more that we pretend to know despite a dearth of evidence for it. Studying the brain challenges me to consider things about human consciousness, emotion, and intelligence that I take for granted every day and that are a lot more complex than we commonly like to believe. Beyond academics, I think this quote holds true in my personal life, too. College has challenged me to consider my identity and the type of person I am, and to change my conception of myself over time. My experience with being Jewish from my blog post this week is just one of many examples of this.
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Week of October 23, 2018:
“If it’s cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile”
– Rascal Flatts, “My Wish”
A particularly relevant quote for this week as it dipped into the low 30s in Cambridge on Monday for the first time all fall. It comes from one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite music groups, Rascal Flatts.
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Week of October 7, 2018:
“Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?”
– Michelle Obama
This quote comes from a back-to-school Q&A session that Michelle Obama hosted with Nick Cannon and Seth Myers for Howard University freshmen in 2016 (also the year I started college!). What I like most about it is the message’s simplicity. So often, I over-complicate and overthink new things. But Michelle Obama doesn’t give the students of Howard University that option; she tells them point blank that they must promise her to step beyond the familiar. No qualms or trepidation allowed– just thriving and continuously moving forward.
On Ariel's Mind 