Pollyanna Quotes

I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together. ~ Harlan Coben

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization ... In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system ... It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us.
This is no defeatism ... The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too ...
All this represents the manner in which I believe I have been able to add something positive to the pessimism of ... the existensialists. I have not replaced the gloom of existence by a philosophy which is optimistic in any Pollyanna sense, but ... with a positive attitude toward the universe and toward our life in it. ~ Norbert Wiener

Then there were her childhood book: Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, What Katy did next, Pollyanna - stories about girls who were good. All Pollyanna had ever done wrong was ruin her parasol. Beth in Little Women was so perfect she was only fit for heaven. Why were girls in novels exemplary, almost saintly? Grace preferred adventure stories, histories and romances about what to do if you were damned and female, tales about women who were kind, likeable and believable, who escaped unpunished. No thin Quakers with lace caps. No beatific consumptives coughing delicately. No unloved, eternally jolly orphans. Grace craved books about girls like herself: good women, normal women in a world bigger and more powerful than themselves. ~ Wendy Jones

None of my films are 'Pollyanna.' They're not little deers walking around with butterflies and stuff. That's not what I do. ~ Corbin Bernsen

Wonder is not a Pollyanna stance, not a denial of reality; wonder is an acknowledgement of the power of the mind to transform, to notice, to decide what experience shall mean. ~ Christina Baldwin

My husband and I met on OKCupid. We went out on our little coffee date, and I knew right away he was my husband. He's a handsome, smarty-pants architect from Tokyo. On our first date, I said, 'I wake up like this. I'm Pollyanna Sunshine, and I'm not for everyone'. ~ Geneva Carr

True honesty is what you are willing to admit to yourself without judgement! ~ Pollyanna Darling

When David Markson wrote in June to complain about an author's getting an award he though should have been his, Wallace gently warned him away from the pitfall of envy: Mostly I try to remember how lucky I am to be able to write, and doubly, triply lucky I am that anyone else is willing to read it, to say nothing of publishing it. I'm no pollyanna - this keeping-the-spirits-up shit is hard work, and I don't often do it well. But I try ... Life is good ~ D.T. Max

I'm not a Pollyanna; I'm a pragmatist. ~ Laura Lang

So what's all the fuss?" he asked instead. "Where's all the shit coming from?"
Dean told him. He tried to make it concise, using flash words such as "fire" and "conspiracy" and "big
freakin' shape-shifter," and told Roland, too, about Miri and Robert and Kevin. The red jade.
"You're both fucked," Roland said. "Seriously. I'll start arranging the funeral now."
"I want a happy boss. Where's the positive reinforcement?"
"Buried with Pollyanna in my backyard. Which is where you'll be if you don't play your cards right. ~ Marjorie M. Liu

I am not an idiot, and I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type. ~ Dan Savage

I survived turning 60, I was not thrilled to turn 61, I was less thrilled to turn 62, I didn't much like being 63, I loathed being 64, and I will hate being 65. I don't let on about such things in person; in person, I am cheerful and Pollyanna-ish. But the honest truth is that it's sad to be over 60. ~ Nora Ephron

Where is the integrity in telling the team they "must have all this done by this date" when you haven't asked the team if it is even possible? ~ Pollyanna Pixton

Anyone who looks for life can find it ... and they don't need to photograph ashcans. The average camera fan reminds me of Pollyanna, with a lollypop in one hand and a camera in the other. You can't be a Nice Nelly and take news pictures. ~ Weegee

Don't be a Pollyanna! ~ Richard Diebenkorn

I long ago discovered that you can't TELL about Pollyanna. The minute you try to, she sounds priggish and preachy, and
impossible. Yet you and I know she is anything but that. ~ Eleanor Porter

To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful. ~ Brennan Manning

When I have passed that same reality on to another human being, the result most often has been the inner healing of their heart through the touch of my affirmation. To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful. When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation. FINALLY, BRETHREN, WHATEVER IS TRUE, WHATEVER IS HONORABLE, WHATEVER IS RIGHT, WHATEVER IS PURE, WHATEVER IS LOVELY, WHATEVER IS OF GOOD REPUTE, IF THERE IS ANY EXCELLENCE AND IF ANYTHING WORTHY OF PRAISE, DWELL ON THESE THINGS. (PHIL. 4:8 NASB) ~ Brennan Manning

I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna. ~ Bill Ayers

If I'd found out that Norman Mailer liked me, I'd have killed myself. I think he was too hung up. I'm glad Kurt Vonnegut didn't like me either. He had problems, terrible problems. He couldn't see the world the way I see it. I suppose I'm too much Pollyanna, he was too much Cassandra. Actually I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past - a combination of both. But I don't think I'm too over optimistic. ~ Ray Bradbury

My family absolutely comes first, and I don't mean that in a Pollyanna way. It's the focus of my life because it's what makes me happy. ~ Tracy Pollan

You know, I do have a little Pollyanna in me. ~ Donna McKechnie

There is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it. ~ Eleanor Porter

Let's take the gauntlet and make goodness attractive in this so-called next millennium. That's the real job that we have. I'm not talking about Pollyanna-ish kind of stuff. I'm talking about down-to-Earth actual goodness. People caring for each other in a myriad of ways rather than people knocking each other off all the time...What changes the world? The only thing that ever really changes the world is when somebody gets the idea that love can abound and can be shared. ~ Fred Rogers

What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened ... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut ... Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out! ... People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. ~ Eleanor Porter

Every reaction is an opportunity to cultivate a pearl - a beautiful truth that will illuminate the way forwards. ~ Pollyanna Darling

The world's many mysteries fascinate me and inspire in me a hope so profound that I suppose, if I were to express it sincerely and at length in a manuscript more bluntly philosophical than this one, any normal person, those who walk freely in daylight, would find it the work of a Pollyanna and worthy only of ridicule. ~ Dean Koontz

Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist. ~ Dale Carnegie

I looked at her blankly. Adeline seemed way too chipper to have a troubled life. Then again, if you judge by Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, and Pollyanna, the world's most chipperest people were orphans, so go figure" -Melly ~ Lisa Jenn Bigelow

I know what happened to you sucks and I'm not gonna give you some Pollyanna shit about everything happens for a reason or this was gods gift to make you strong cause if anybody said that to me i would punch them right in the mouth. But all you can do at a time like this is just hang out until the scenery changes. ~ QUEER AS FOLK

We have to support each other's tired nerves, I know that sounds so Pollyanna, but really ... Mommy groups can be amazing, but haven't you ever gone to one and felt like you are back in high school, totally on the outside of the 'cool kids' club? I totally have! ~ Marissa Jaret Winokur

Gospel hope keeps us from being muted by being either a naive Pollyanna or a despairing Cassandra. Voices of warning are meant to be heard, not just raised. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

I am a bit of a Pollyanna - I spend most of my day happy. ~ Ted Danson

I have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I think there are plenty of people dealing with the darker side of human nature, and if I am going to write about people who are kind and generous and loving and thoughtful, so what? In my life I have met astonishingly good people. ~ Ann Patchett

Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all just to- to live. ~ Eleanor Porter

There is a bit [in Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?] where I talk about 'keeping the heart awake to love and beauty.' That's very difficult in our world, even when things are going well. It's not a world with much room for love and beauty. The daily news is [filled with] everything that goes wrong in our world, and everything horrible and unpleasant. I think that saturates your mind with negativity. I really think we need something to counteract that. I don't think it's Pollyanna or sentimental to focus on the ways we support one another on the micro level.
(from "It is the Imagination that Counts") ~ Jeanette Winterson

There was Mary Pickford, who called Frances "the pillar of my career," for she had written Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Pollyanna, A Little Princess, and a dozen more of Pickford's greatest successes. Frances was also her best friend and had seen her through her divorce from Owen Moore and marriage to Douglas Fairbanks; Frances and Mary had even honeymooned with their new husbands together in Europe. Irving Thalberg was the "boy genius of Hollywood," but Frances called him "my rock of Gibraltar" and he was the only man in the room whose opinion she truly valued and respected. He in turn "adored her and trusted her completely. ~ Cari Beauchamp

Look, I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs, I've got my health, and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful. ~ Christopher Meloni

In fact, I know that a 'nice live little boy' would be far better than - my skeleton in the closet; only - we aren't always willing to make the exchange. We are apt to still cling to - our skeletons, Pollyanna. ~ Eleanor H. Porter

My relationship with 'Pollyanna' is a very personal one, because Pollyanna got me through my childhood. ~ Eleanor Porter

Considering the Pollyanna optimism he was showing, I wasn't sure about that, but it didn't seem worth arguing about. "All right," I said. "Then I'll check back with you later. I have a crisis at home. ~ Jeff Lindsay

I'm grateful I had the strength to fight. It takes courage to believe the best is yet to come, especially when you are flat on your back and don't know if you're going to see tomorrow. I'm no Pollyanna, but I believe optimism is a choice - a muscle that gets stronger with use. Right foot, left foot ... just keep moving. ~ Robin Roberts