“Go with confidence.  Prize tolerance and horse sense.  And sometime, somewhere along the way, do something for your country.”
         Commencement speech words of author David McCullough

Books are beyond words. They are a port in a storm, sea spray to the face, illuminating sunshine, clouded landscapes. They are: “That’s so true”; “I never thought of it that way”; “This scares the shit out of me”; “Who would do that?”; “That makes me sad.” They are accomplishments, riddles, something to conquer, something to surrender to, an invitation, a warning, a confession, a time, a place, a figment of your imagination, a happy ending, an extended middle finger. They are where you look for things you didn’t know before.  

“Luck is the residue of design,” Branch Rickey. My design was to turn to books to learn new things, expand my worldview and get a better grade on the knowledge test of life, my luck was uncovering thoughts and concepts and perspective and original wisdom that reveal clues about how we might make life better, and more, insights into what better means.

If you can have only one quality, let it be character. I take this to mean that life should be led according to some type of honor code; that is, that we should set out to do what’s right, even if no one’s looking.
Boldly asserted is half proven. If you’re going to take the time to have an opinion, state that opinion with gusto. This is great news for those of us who like to argue a point mainly for the sport of arguing.
It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit. At some point, just being on the winning team lost its luster, and satisfaction was only attainable by being the star on the winning team. With each day I’m just happy to be on the team.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I wish I spent more time being thankful for, reveling in what I have, but I seem to spend most waking hours conspiring to get what I don’t.
“Choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong …” an excerpt from the Army Cadet Prayer. This is the kind of lofty pursuit best left to our armed forces, as history proves that they are one of the few life forms capable of realizing this objective.
“Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass,” Sir Frankie Crisp. I try not to judge friends and family because I have too few of both, rather I save my snap judgments, biased opinions and flawed assumptions for total strangers.
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you,” Elbert Hubbard. This speaks to the rarity of friendship and the folly in allowing too many people to know all about you.
“Dress like you’re going to the bank to borrow money,” Bukka White. A clean car will bring more money at auction than a dirty car, and to appear that you are serious about life will more often than not be enough to convince the masses that you are.
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm,” Winston Churchill. Self-esteem is not gained through the opinions of others, humans can’t validate your existence. The running of the race, the continual running, is the race’s sole intent.
If the world is night, shine my life like a light. Books are beacons, emitting a signal that draws us in and invites us to absorb knowledge, and certain people are beacons existing like little power pills that energize us through their spirit and noble pursuits. This life is but a search for those beacons.
“There are really only two kinds of people, those who are for you and those who are against you … Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other,” Lemmy Kilmister. It’s easy to live with caution. Being optimistic is an exhausting roller coaster of disappointment. Cheerfully greeting the highs and lows ensures that you will be able to seize happiness should it appear; seeing evil in the face of everyone, rather, comes with the risk of not being able to recognize Fortune when she occasionally knocks.
“The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds – think big anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow – do good anyway,” from the Paradoxical 10 Commandments. When you pick up a book, power on the Kindle, turn the page, finish a chapter, highlight a passage, jot a phrase in a silly little notebook, you are on the path to continuous improvement. In a tiny way, unseen, you’re stirring the pot, mixing words and ideas and letting their aroma drift off to be detected by others downstream. This movement of ideas, this intellectual chain letter, embodied by writing and reading may shrink the space between us. When we share information, and the act of reading is a social act, we share the emotional imprint that travels with that information.

Authors will seem smarter than you, they will say profound things, make you intellectually insecure, hit patriotic notes that will make you cry; subjects will be over your head, opinions will madden you, a 5-star book will turn into a 2-star nightmare – read books anyway. In a book on any topic, you will often find that the subject you’re really reading about is you – keep reading the book anyway.