Flann O'Brien Quotes

As we get older - perhaps I'm just speaking for myself - we can get too cynical.

If you spend your whole life being depressed about life, you're wasting it.

When I lament and darken over my diminishments, I accomplish nothing. It's better to sit at the window all day, pleased to watch birds, barns, and flowers.

I'm older, and I wish that a lot of things that I did in my life, I didn't do, but I'm able to talk about it.

Cynicism is tough. A cynic's point of view is really pitiful. I derive pleasure out of a lot of things in life. As long as I'm fairly healthy, it's hard to stay dismal for very long.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do.

In looking back, I see nothing to regret and little to correct.

People like Bill Maher, who brags about being a cynic, it sickens me. I am the least cynical person I know, and I am very, very skeptical.

I know there's millions of problems in the world, but if you dwell on those, then you're going to be miserable. I think my meditation helps me to transcend and get beyond the grip of all the negativity and regenerate from within a more positive attitude, which comes in very handy when you're going to do 150 concerts a year.

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

I bring spiritual books with me while travelling. I like books about thoughts and how you see the world.

I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one.

I truly don't believe in regret.

If I had one regret in life... it's that I was not more humble at an earlier age.

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say 'no.' But saying 'yes' begins things. Saying 'yes' is how things grow.

People say you become more cynical as you get older. That hasn't been my experience.

Turning 50 is making me reflect on my life in a way that's more compassionate and forgiving.

I'm not a person who regrets - it doesn't make me smarter to regret something.

Thanks to my Buddhist faith, to the positivity that arose from prayer, I put the optimism of determination before the pessimism of logic and reason.

Bad things happen everyday but you're not going to be any happier thinking about them. So I don't think about them.

Circumstances do not push or pull. They are daily lessons to be studied and gleaned for new knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom that is applied will bring about a brighter tomorrow. A person who is depressed is spending too much time thinking about the way things are now and not enough time thinking about how he wants things to be.

I have no interest in behaving or thinking cynically. But it's an easy trap to be cynical about anything, certainly when you're talking about politics or the media.

I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think about today..." "No, that's giving up... I'm still hpoing that yesterday will get better.