Melody Beattie Quotes
I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people's lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.

Quotes to Explore
-
When I started out back in Louisville, there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.
-
I debated free trade in college. I came out as a free trader. I'm a free markets guy. I'm an Adam Smith guy.
-
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
-
I had cottage cheese for lunch and a glass of wine when I got home tonight.
-
If you're an artist, you're an artist; that's the only way I can explain it.
-
That's actually how my parents met. They were pen pals. My mom was in the Philippines and my father was in the States, and they wrote to each other. He went out to meet her, and they wed not too long after.
-
I put my thoughts in a book, which must mean I don't want anyone to read them.
-
I remember when I was in third grade, I was in a classroom, and the teacher said, 'What do you want to do when you get older?' We were going around the room. I said, 'I want to be a professional basketball player.' She's like, 'That's not realistic.' I thought to myself, 'OK, watch.'
-
This is how to avoid re-creating painful situations: Take the time to discover your real intention before you act. If it is to change someone or the world so that you will feel safe or better about yourself, don't act on it, because it is an intention of fear and can create only painful consequences.
-
The public saw my father right out of central casting. He looked the part, acted the part... he was the part! The real life Godfather.
-
If children have an interest in nature, they will understand. I want them to become people who appreciate the consequences the next generation will suffer if we destroy our natural surroundings. So without a doubt, they need to learn that nature is vital to us by experiencing it. I want them to like nature and to climb mountains and so on.
-
We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it.
-
Perhaps I am not as wise as I like to think I am.
-
Writing has always been an interest of mine, and 'The Language of Flowers' combined my experience with foster care with something I've always wanted to do.
-
I was never as famous as all these kids. There was no social media. We weren't celebrity-obsessed as a culture. I feel like these kids are under a crazy microscope; they're basically brands. And they eventually implode and act out. They need a break, and they're not getting one.
-
Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs.
-
We must not be squeamish when we learn that a total of 17,000 have been shot. We are now duty bound to hold together, we who are gathered together here figure on Mr. Roosevelt's list of war criminals. I have the honour of being Number One.
-
With the tentacles of branding reaching into every crevice of youth culture, leaching brand-image content not only out of street styles like hip-hop but psychological attitudes like ironic detachment, the cool hunt has had to go further afield to find unpilfered space and that left only one frontier: the past.
-
In the past, war was confined for the most part to men in uniform, but with increased mechanization of armies and the introduction of air forces, there is an increased dependence on the home country, and eight to ten people working at home are now required to keep one man in the fighting line.
-
There are many other pleasures - besides the pleasure of physical union.
-
I can't write or read music. I am self-taught and never learned formally. It can be a curse sometimes but I think it's more difficult for those who need the music to read from than for those who play by ear.
-
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.
-
I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people's lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.