Leo Rosten Quotes

When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a long time before you can really say you're a writer. You've got to stand the test of time, which is the only real test there is.

None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.

Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.

I look back and think of all the times I've had to let things go in the past, and how traumatic it seemed while it was happening, but how my understanding of it changed as time passed - and oftentimes things that seem really difficult and traumatic in the short term seem a lot less difficult and traumatic in the long term. So I remind myself of that.

Die! Die to the ego, die to your past, and you will be resurrected. That resurrection will make you go beyond death, beyond time, beyond misery.

Things you did. Things you never did. Things you dreamed. After a long time they run together.

I'm still digesting the '90s. It takes some time to get perspective.

There is no creature so perfect in wisdom and knowledge but may learn something for time present, and to come, by times past.

I think pure light has something to do with actually seeing everything at once. It's kind of a nirvana of sorts.

You can only live on the past for so long, and we kind of stretched our luck on that. We think we're on the way back, but it's just a matter of how quickly things come together. Common sense tells you it's not going to happen overnight because we're trying to catch up.

If anyone cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of feeling at all. From the enduring wonder of the heavens flows all grace and power. If anyone thinks it is mindless then he himself must be out of his mind.

These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me.

When thou standest still from thinking and willing of self, the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking will be revealed to thee, and so God heareth and seeth through thee. Thine own hearing, willing, and seeing hindereth thee, that thou dost not see nor hear God.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer's own; and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience.

I am a coach who thinks always in the long term.

Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

In the long arc of time, you are only relevant if customers love you.

Age and youth look upon life from the opposite ends of the telescope; it is exceedingly long,--it is exceedingly short.

Advice is a form of nostalgia.

You think the world is what it looks like in fine weather at noon day; I think it is what it seems like in the early morning when one first wakes from deep sleep.

All things that pass Are wisdom's looking-glass.

I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. Genius is experience. Some think to seem that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives

I'm a pretty young person, but I think you need a little life experience to actually say something.