Amitava Kumar Quotes

I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn't. In fact, I didn't even know you were supposed to have one.

When a person gets to the age of 35 and you go to jail, it either makes you or breaks you. It made me identify what I wanted.

To know ourselves, is agreed by all to be the most useful Learning; the first Lessons, therefore, given us ought to be on that Subject.

Writing in a journal reminds you of your goals and of your learning in life. It offers a place where you can hold a deliberate, thoughtful conversation with yourself.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It's a way of life for me.

I would be a poorer person if the only things I knew were what I had found out for myself.

Life changed at 40 for me, as predicted by my acting teacher when I was leaving college. I became more hirable and more interesting... I'm not sure why.

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

Education is freedom.

I think that's one of the most important things that books do: not to teach you anything, but to help you teach yourself by just being in the world of the book and having your own thoughts and reactions and noticing your own reactions and thoughts and learning about yourself that way.

My first novel, 'In the Drink,' begun when I was 29 and floundering and published when I was 36 and married, was about a 29-year-old woman whose life was even more screwed up than my own had been.

I believe that any type of education can be great, but an education about ourselves can create something wonderful. I am a comedian, but people have called me a motivational speaker. I don't really consider myself that at all.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.

Deliverance is about what I went through the first time. And I chalk it up as a learning experience.

After years of making wrong decisions in my life, in 1977 I found out that it was all right to be square, simple, and sober.

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.

Life is definitely always about expanding. That's how we grow.

People should accept being single, because those are the moments you can really focus on yourself, and learning who you are. Then when you get in a relationship, you will be stronger and have a little bit more self-awareness, self-love, and the other ingredients for a healthy relationship.

Building a successful company (or living a happy life, for that matter) is not about embracing someone else's philosophy, but staying true to your own beliefs about the world and learning from the mistakes you make along the way.

Tennis was always sort of a - a learning. It was a vehicle for me to discover a lot about myself. And the things that I sort of discovered at times I not only didn't want to see it for myself but I certainly didn't want millions of people to see it.

Generally, I like making my own mistakes and learning from them because that's what I think life is about.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught.

I view life as a learning experience. It is not so much all about music; it is about what happens when you are doing the music.