Hugh Macleod Quotes

You do not own the molecules. They are stardust. They belong to God. What you do own is your soul. Nobody can take that away from you. ~ Hugh MacLeod

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in Kindergarten, why fear them now? ~ Hugh MacLeod

Remain humble. Stay positive. Create your own luck. Be nice. Be polite. ~ Hugh MacLeod

The best way to get approval is not to need it. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Your idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing. The more amazing, the more people will click with your idea. The more people click with your idea, the more it will change the world. ~ Hugh MacLeod

People are fond of spouting out the old cliché about how Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. Somehow his example serves to justify to us, decades later, that there is merit in utter failure.
Perhaps, but the man did commit suicide. The market for his work took off big-time shortly after his death. Had he decided to stick around another few decades he most likely would've entered old age quite prosperous. And sadly for failures everywhere, the cliché would have lost a lot of its power.
The fact is, the old clichés work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clichés are clean and tidy. ~ Hugh MacLeod

When your dreams becoming reality, they're no longer your dreams. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Boring' can be a lot of fun. Especially if it's on your own terms. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. ~ Hugh MacLeod

The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would seriously surprise me. ~ Hugh MacLeod

The hunger will give you everything and it will take from you, everything. It will cost you your life, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. But knowing this, of course, is what ultimately sets you free. ~ Hugh MacLeod

You have to find your own shtick. A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven symphony always sounds like a Beethoven symphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own. ~ Hugh MacLeod

If your business plan depends on suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain. ~ Hugh MacLeod

He stuff you learn beforehand will never be one-tenth as useful as the stuff you learn the hard way, on the job. ~ Hugh MacLeod

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is. ~ Hugh MacLeod

Have a story. And make sure it's a good one. A DAMN good one. ~ Hugh MacLeod

The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur. That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you anymore. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction. ~ Hugh MacLeod

A lot of people in business say they have twenty years' experience, when in fact all they have is one year's experience, repeated twenty times. ~ Hugh MacLeod

If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you. ~ Hugh MacLeod

If you're creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn't the case. So dust off your horn and start tooting. ~ Hugh MacLeod

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does. ~ Hugh MacLeod

I looked at her and sighed. In another world, I thought to myself, it might have worked. In another world, in another universe, in another time, as two quite different people, we really might have been able to put all of this behind us, take off to some sun-drenched Caribbean island, and have sex and pineapple juice, non-stop, for a year. ~ Hugh Laurie

Damn! I thought, furious that even after expending my only rocket, I couldn't get the machine pistol; I was right back where I started, except one rocket lighter. I had squandered my gift! I felt like the guy who found a lamp that would grant one wish, and he says, "Jeez, I wish I knew what to wish for." I ~ Dafydd Ab Hugh

am not responsible for my feelings, but for what I do with them. ~ Hugh Prather

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives. ~ Hugh Mackay

I'm quite an independent person, and I had to be. As a boy and growing into a young man I had to look out for myself. And now I'm very family-oriented. It's a big priority in my life. ~ Hugh Jackman

I was thinking about people," said Polynesia." People make me sick. They think they're so wonderful. The world has been going on now for thousands of years, hasn't it? And the only thing in animal language that people have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his tail he means 'I'm glad'! It's funny isn't it? You are the very first man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully - such airs they put on, talking about 'the dumb animals.' Dumb! Huh! Why I knew a macaw once who could say 'Good morning' in seven different ways. ~ Hugh Lofting

What is it you want from me, Hugh?"
"Short term, I'd like you to say my name with a please attached to it. I'd like to walk into Jester Park with you on my arm."
[ ... ]
"Long term, I want to win. And I will win, Kate. You'll put up a good fight, but eventually you'll be sleeping in my bed and fighting with me back to back. We'll be good together. I promise you."
"What part of no don't you understand?"
"The part where I don't get what I want. ~ Ilona Andrews

To get down to the quick of it, respect motivates me - not success. ~ Hugh Jackman

Finding her voice at last, she asked, "What dreams are you having, sir?"
"I dreamt I was in a spring field and a woman stands in the shadows just at the edge of the nearby forest. I haven't yet seen her face, only her long beautiful hair. I always wake too soon." He reached up to touch the hawk touchstone around his throat as he described his dream, rubbing it absently between his fingers.
Lily lowered her lashes to hide her astonishment. "When you see someone in a dream but cannot see their face, it means you haven't met them yet," she explained.
"Then perhaps I'll dream of her again tonight and this time I'll see her face." He smiled, reaching across the table to take her left hand and lift it to his lips. "My name is Ian Kelly, and it would give me the greatest pleasure to know yours."
"Lily Evans. Around here I go by Raven." She raised a shoulder, indicating the gypsy tent.
"Lily--indeed, a most beautiful name. Now tell me," he stared pointedly at her hand, "I see no ring that another has claimed you as his, so my confidence is strengthened. Look at your cards again, milady, and tell me if you see me in your future… ~ Shannon MacLeod

And Lukas would tell them to be good to each other, that there were only so many of them left, and that all the books and all the stars in the universe were pointless with no one to read them, no one to peer through the parting clouds for them. He ~ Hugh Howey

Once a citizen receives a direct payment from the state, the state has purchased their complicity ~ Charles Hugh Smith

Now I meet people with full-color Wolverine tattoos on their backs. Thank God I did okay, because I think if I hadn't, they'd spit on me in the street. ~ Hugh Jackman

A wholesome sense of humor will be a safety valve that will enable you to apply the lighter touch to heavy problems and to learn some lessons in problem solving that "sweat and tears" often fail to dissolve. ~ Hugh B. Brown

Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it's badly translated, hard to figure out. ~ Hugh Laurie

Things that appear unlikely, impossible, or paradoxical from one point of view often make perfectly good sense from another. ~ Hugh Nibley

That silence seems to build and build, like the darkness I saw once in a cave in West Virginia. Darkness you can chew. Darkness you can feel for miles all around you. Darkness you're not sure you'll ever crawl out of. ~ Hugh Howey

It is a test," Hugh repeated adamantly. "The trio must show themselves to be worthy." "Then what's my test?" Jordan pressed. "You already passed it. In the forest, you sacrificed yourself without a fight, proving you were a Warrior who could achieve his goals through peace and nonviolence." "Then what about my test?" Rhun asked. "It came with you." Hugh bowed his head toward the cub. "You, a Knight of Christ, took pity and mercy on a creature you believed to be born of darkness, defying the edicts of your order to kill it on sight. For such mercy, you came away with a miracle of light and grace. ~ James Rollins

He could imagine how nice it would be to not understand. To see one's microcosm as the macrocosm. To focus a meter beyond one's own nose. ~ Hugh Howey

All my experiences removed geography from my world. ~ Hugh Masekela

Now, Dr. Anderson, you've been telling us how the world began and how brilliant it was of all the scientists to be able to find it out." He paused and deployed his most innocent smile. "But of course there were no scientists around when the world began." Another pause, "Now I have a question with which Science -- I hope I'm not getting out of my league -- may be more humanly involved." Another pause. "How do you think the worldwill end? ~ Hugh MacLennan

Nothing ever tasted better than a cold beer on a beautiful afternoon with nothing to look forward to than more of the same. ~ Hugh Hood

My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home. ~ Hugh Hefner

You must rely on reason and science," she said, "and be guided by a likewise rational ethic of human concern. You must do your utmost as individuals to improve your understanding, ability and compassion. ~ Ken MacLeod

I would love to have a robot at home. ~ Hugh Jackman

I thought you were a folk singer.'

'No, I just need a haircut. In point of fact, I can't tell one note from another.'

'That needn't prevent you from being a folk singer. ~ Charlotte MacLeod

In the eye of that Supreme Being to whom our whole internal frame is uncovered, dispositions hold the place of actions. ~ Hugh Blair

People are more open about seeking help these days. They recognise the fact that the alternative to having a shrink is that you bore your friends stupid. So I figured that I might as well give someone 100 bucks an hour to hear my woes. At least someone can make a living out of listening to my tedious problems. ~ Hugh Laurie

To imagine wasn't to escape but to go deeper; to see through to the secret life of the world. ~ Alison MacLeod

To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneself makes one want to break most of the Commandments. ~ Hector Hugh Munro

Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear ********* weapons. ~ Ken MacLeod

An argument is always about what has been made more important than the relationship. ~ Hugh Prather

Ever since I was twelve, I dreamed of being an author. I just never had the fortitude to see any of my stories through to completion. I would start a book, get a few chapters in, and grow bored or get distracted by something else. ~ Hugh Howey

People were like machines. They broke down. They rattled. They could burn you or maim you if you weren't careful. Her job was not only to figure out why this happened and who was to blame, but also to listen for the signs of it coming. Being sheriff, like being a mechanic, was as much the fine art of preventive maintenance as it was the cleaning up after a breakdown. ~ Hugh Howey

The honest investigator must be prepared to follow wherever the search of truth may lead. Truth is often found in the most unexpected places. He must, with fearless and open mind insist that facts are far more important than any cherished, mistaken beliefs, no matter how unpleasant the facts or how delightful the beliefs. ~ Hugh B. Brown