Anna Pavlova Quotes

No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.

I foolishly thought that if I just 'made it' then everything would be okay. And everything wasn't okay.

I thought my goal in life was to be in a successful band, and I had got that, but I was as miserable as I had ever been, and I couldn't understand why that would be.

The students that, like the wild animal being prepared for its tricks in the circus called 'life', expects only training as sketched above, will be severely disappointed: by his standards he will learn next to nothing.

When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.

There are no shortcuts in life - only those we imagine.

But no, had I been successful in my 20s I would have been just fine. But it is nice to defy the odds.

We sold 400 books of poetry and thought we were well on the way to immortality.

I used to have this illusion that time and remote areas prepare you for the world. Our moms used to think that kind of thing. Well, it doesn't prepare you for the world at all!

After 2012, I thought, 'Oh wow, I've lived through this, and now I have a free ride in life.' And I can't believe I really thought that. As soon as I was healed from cancer and everything I was going through, I got back out into life and realized it doesn't work out like that.

I was naive. Before 'Larrikins,' I thought passion, hard work, and a skill set will mean that anything you want to do will get done. I don't think that anymore.

I always had this impression that money bought you happiness and money solved everything, and it's the biggest lie I have ever been told.

As my kids grow up, I think a lot about the lessons and values I want to impart to them. More than any particular skill or even financial support, I believe perseverance and resilience will serve them best, regardless of what curveball life inevitably throws them.

I do think, in any industry, when you put too much pressure on the source of your happiness coming from your work, you're going to run into a wall. It's easy to think that once you have success, then happiness will just hit like a wave over you. I don't think that's the case, or at least, when I achieved my first dream, that wasn't the case.

Did I really want to teach my children that a list of successes is the most valuable legacy to leave behind? I absolutely did not.

You spend your childhood wanting to get out from your house and wanting to get away and out into the real world, and then as adults, we start to learn that things are not what we thought they were.

I'm not a mom that's going to tell my kids everybody wins.

You make your own kinds of mistakes, and I’m sure you’ll have your share of regrets in life. But commitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know. My little middle-aged child. Luckily, you seem to have found another old soul.

When I was just a little young boy, Papa said Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

I think, one thing that I've really come to appreciate about my parents as I've got older is you know, how wise they really were. As a kid when I was growing up, as any kid, you think you know every thing and I was no different to that. I had different opinions on a lot of different things then them but the way they raised me, in hindsight, they were right.

Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.

Contemporary American children, if they are old enough to grasp the concept of Santa Claus by Thanksgiving, are able to see through it by December 15th.

There was a time when the respect and trust my children had for me would have made you sick to your stomach. They believed I could blow on a red traffic light and turn it green.

I think Santa Claus is, by and large, quite beneficial, for when the child is finally allowed -- or forced -- to recognize the nonexistence of Santa Claus, then the child is able to go through the vital intellectual process of reconstructing reality in light of new evidence, complete with back-forming new stories to account for past events. This prepares the child for many other disillusionments and gives her vital and well-supported experience in maintaining her grip on reality independent of the stories told to her at any given time.