Sara Paretsky Quotes

I've rarely kept my distance from kind of - I don't know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, 'Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.'

It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing from our Government or from each other. Let us all take more responsibility not only for ourselves and our families but our communities and our country.

Most politicians will not stick their necks out unless they sense grass-roots support ... neither you nor I should expect someone else to take our responsibility.

I think one must take responsibility for one's actions and one's decisions. But one should never take -- one should never assume that everything that happens for the good is achieved by one's self alone.

A secure individual...knows that the responsibility for anything concerning his life remains with himself-and he accepts that responsibility.

To give up responsibility for our lives is not healthy.

Taking responsibility for your own life is not a Left wing idea

Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

I think we make our own luck. Our parents give us life, but what we do with that life is our own responsibility.

Who puts the food in your mouth? Who goes to the bathroom for ya? You do. You came on this earth alone and you are going to leave alone. Think about it. If anything happens to Jack La Lanne good or bad, I made it happen. If anything happens to you good or bad, you made it happen - right?

It's no good protecting people or even looking after them past a certain point. One can't grasp more than a piece of anyone. Most of the rest can only be protected by themselves and the remainder by hired specialists and doctors and dentists and professional protectors.

We can all control our own destiny. And I think sometimes it's a copout to say, "Well, it's this person's fault or another person's fault."

Though I was standing in front of a mirror, I wasn't really seeing my reflection. I was seeing, very clearly, that—at the moment—I was all in the world that Eric could think of as his own. I had better not fail him.

I'm not one to blame anyone else for anything. And I don't think anyone else should either.

Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried; Then ask God's help; it will not be denied. Use thine own sight to see the way to go; When darkness falls ask God the path to show. Think for thyself and reason out thy plan; God has His work and thou hast thine. Exert thy will and use for self-control; God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul. All thine immortal powers bring into play; Think, act, strive, reason, and look up and pray.

You think it doesn't really matter if you screw up this time around because you can just sort it all out in paradise

It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people.

Success requires no explanations. Failure permits no alibis.

Your paycheck is not your employer's responsibility, it's your responsibility. Your employer has no control over your value, but you do.

I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.

Doctrine that eliminates or even obscures the function of choice of values and enlistment of desires and emotions in behalf of those chosen weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action. It thus helps create the attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state.