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What Now? QUOTES

What Now? QUOTES

1 " For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

2 " Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

3 " Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

4 " If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

5 " What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

6 " Sometimes not having any idea where we're going works out better than we could possibly have imagined. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

7 " Once you decide that strangers are more than just dangerous accidents waiting to happen, you will find yourself able to listen. How much sadness could be averted by taking the time to notice all the people we have come to ignore? Would we in fact be safer and not more at risk if we asked someone to voice his feelings rather than wait until he looked for other means of making himself heard? "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

8 " Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing. The secret is finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your way. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

9 " I learned the most from sticking with my dream even when all signs told me it was time to let go. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

10 " How much sadness could be averted by taking the time to notice all the people we have come to ignore? Would we in fact be safer and not more at risk if we asked someone to voice his feelings rather than wait until he looked for other means of making himself heard? "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

11 " I had no interest in starting over again, but there are some people whom we grant the role of oracle in our lives and when they speak--rarely, gravely--we are well-advised to listen. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

12 " For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly , and from sources you never imagined to be probable. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

13 " people need to talk, and often a willingness to sit and listen is the greatest kindness one person can offer to another. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?

14 " Even if you have it all together you can’t know where you’re going to end up. There are too many forces, as deep and invisible as tides, that keep us bouncing into places where we never thought we’d wind up. Sometimes the best we can hope for is to be graceful and brave in the face of all of the changes that will surely come. It also helps to have a sense of humor about your own fate, to not think that you alone are blessed when good fortune comes your way, or cursed when it passes you by. It helps if you can realize that this part of life when you don’t know what’s coming next is often the part that people look back on with the greatest affection. "

― Ann Patchett , What Now?