Quotes on Advice

Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

I got a fortune cookie that said, "To remember is to understand." I have never forgotten it. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers being a writer. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child.

I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself - in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself.

If I had to give you one piece of advice it would be this: don't be intimidated by other people's opinions.

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.

When the world is storm-driven and bad things happen, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.

To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.

When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.

Surround yourself with people who add the fuel of advice and encouragement to your fire.

Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering—this is an all-weather beatitude for gloom in general and fairly salutary day-time advice for everyone. But at three o’clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence, and the cure doesn’t work—and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.

We were young, but we had good advice and good ideas and lots of enthusiasm.

I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling?

My only advice is to try to get the job that's most like the job you want, rather than the one that's more prestigious. Always try to be the talent.

I think valuing what your body can do over how your body looks is the No. 1 advice I would give to young women about how to have healthy body image. It's not, 'Do these pants fit?' It's 'Can I do a split?'

Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.