“If you do not exert yourself in youth, there will be vain regrets in old age.” (Chinese proverb, from the walls of the Gest Library, Princeton)
“Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to fall back.” (Gest Library)
“Omnia praeclara tam difficilia quam rara sunt.” (Spinoza: “All that is excellent is as difficult as it is rare.” Given to me by T. McFarland.)
“In the theater of your life, you are the protagonist. You are the director; you are the producer. And in the end, you will be its harshest critic. Play it well.” (Jayne Karsten, Langley High School graduation speech)
七転び八起き “Fall down seven times; get up eight.” (Traditional Japanese proverb)
“Don’t be discouraged.” (Wiles)
“A professional is one who, under any circumstances, can perform at 85% of his best.” (Starker)
“The key to learning is shamelessness.” (C.P. Chou)
“True freedom only comes after great discipline.” (Stravinsky)
“An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s” (Zooey Glass)
Re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (esp. section on “Gumptionology 101”)
“True masters eat bitter every day, and that’s that.” Pan Ch’ing-Fu
“Everyone decided the best way was just to figure you were going to fail and then go ahead and do what you could anyway. Then you start to relax. Otherwise you go out of your mind!” (from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)