Experiential Life Advice Quotes

He cannot wisely consent to spend the best years of his life in getting ready to live. ~ Horace Greeley

Be careful how you live your life, there is judgement. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You ought to follow your inner voice. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The truth is that writing is simply not reliable. You can't count on it to be there just because you've made some space for it. In fact, making space might make it disappear. You tell yourself you can't write in the middle of your daily life, with all its distractions and commitments, and when you finally clear the decks, light off for someplace scenic or at least private, you sit there completely paralyzed. You have devoted yourself to writing, but it has not returned your devotion. If writing were a person, you would be in an abusive relationship. The healthy thing to do would be to get a restraining order and shut it right out of your heart. ~ Kim Addonizio

When you work on a book and you have planned everything out and you are putting flesh to an idea and a surmise that before was mainly bones something funny happens. Your brain goes into an altered state where the words you write are not quite the words you want but rather the words dictated by the task at hand. ~ David Amerland

Our dreams define our destiny. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Living the good life as created beings depends on living within the limits and according to the truths of the human condition. Purity of heart and the capacity to channel desires toward personal self-mastery in holiness are part of the high calling of the Christian life. These remain necessities, despite the promises of a false humanism that claims that human nature has neither limits nor boundaries, being infinitely plastic and malleable -- a vain and counterproductive attempt to liberate humans from guilt. ~ George Cardinal Pell

I'm not normally one to take advice from my fictional characters, but there comes a point in every girl's life where she reaches a crossroads: a night alone with her sweatpants and her favorite television show, or a party with real, live, breathing people. ~ Francesca Zappia

My words are not a form of free advice. They are born through my journey called life! ~ Trishna Damodar

You don't have any control over anyone's feelings.

You can't make your parents feel proud of you.
You can't make anyone like you.
You can't make anyone love you.

You can make it easier for them, by sacrificing your time and energy, but you cannot MAKE THEM, you can only make it easier for them - and yet again, what have you gained? Nothing. You're gambling. Putting trust coins into a slot machine hoping that love comes out. ~ M. Kirin

You give a lot of great advice about what to do. Do you have any advice of what not to do?


Don't do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don't stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don't fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don't focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore. Don't seek joy at all costs. I know it's hard to know what to do when you have a conflicting set of emotions and desires, but it's not as hard as we pretend it is. Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do - have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly. I don't think there's a single dumbass thing I've done in my adult life that I didn't know was a dumbass thing to do while I was doing it. Even when I justified it to myself - as I did every damn time - the truest part of me knew I was doing the wrong thing. Always. As the years pass, I'm learning how to better trust my gut and not do the wrong thing, but every so often I get a harsh reminder that I've still got work to do. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Dare to travel on new path. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The joy of giving during Christmas, comes from acknowledging that we were spiritually gifted with more than we can ever give out. ~ Wayne Chirisa

Write what you love. Passion is the key to a good story. ~ R.M. Donaldson

Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them. ~ Eliza Green

We must find within us a happiness with ourselves which no one else can disturb. Otherwise we give them power over us. ~ Aleksandra Layland

Hold yourself in great esteem. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

As a child of privilege, no one is your friend. They will claim to be your friends, they will laugh at your jokes and invite you to their parties, but they do not like you. They like your power, they like what you will become someday. ~ Orson Scott Card

I heard a story about a woman who grew up in Texas. When she was having trouble in her life, she would visit her grandmother, who lived nearby and always had a kind word and some wisdom to pass on. One day she was complaining to her grandmother about some situation and her grandmother just turned to her, smiled sadly, and said, "Sometimes, darlin', you've just got to rise above yourself in this life." I've remembered that wise advice many times as I've faced trouble in my life. ~ William Hudson O'Hanlon

Write as though your life depended on it. ~ Jill Telford

Enjoy life while you can. Nothing's gonna happen for maybe five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. But lemme give you a piece of advice: Whenever the doorbell rings, have somebody else answer the door. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

My biggest bits of advice are, write as much as you can, finish what you start, get a thick skin, don't take crap from anyone, but also live your life and have fun. The stereotype of a writer holed up alone all day is really unhelpful. You can't write real people and real emotion if you don't let yourself experience them. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Those of us who have overcome so many adversities from a very young age, are privileged to be able to communicate profound insights and advice to others, speaking from a place of genuine confidence and knowing. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

Who you spend your life with-much more so than how you choose to spend it-is the most important decision you can make. Do it right. That's the best advice I can give you. ~ Eli Broad

Life became more aligned when I started taking some of the advice I'd been dishing out to my friends. ~ Paula Heller Garland

Maybe life involves the pairing of unsuitable people, those who wait and those who keep others waiting, and the key to happiness is finding the one person with whom you share the same internal chronometer. ~ Jacob M. Appel

If I had my life again, I'd act differently. It's hard for a man if he thinks his wife doesn't respect him. ~ Edward Rutherfurd

You just have to work really hard and throw everything into it ... It's really hard to be an artist, and even if you do work really hard, there's no guarantee about anything. There's no advice you can give someone that things will somehow work out, but you can talk to people about how they can make art a big part of their life. ~ Dana Schutz

My best advice for finding inner happiness is to reach outside yourself, to use your talents and brains and personality to make life better for someone else. ~ Nick Vujicic

In the way such things happen in real life, I suspect I'll never see him again. We talked about that once. There was a term in Japanese, he said. Eng. It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend. Loved before it is too late. You never know (he said) in which night your ship is passing. ~ Tobias Hill

Find the gold in every moment. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Mothers are urgently trying to tell something to their daughters, and this urgency is precisely what repels their daughters, forcing them to turn away. Mothers are left stranded, madly holding a lump of London clay, some grass, some white tubers, a dandelion, a fat worm passing the world through itself. ~ Zadie Smith

Be enthusiastic about life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. ~ Francis Bacon

Anything that comes easy may not be worth it. ~ Shampa Sharma