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Quote by S. Spencer Baker

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S. Spencer Baker

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“Model yourself after great men and women, but never imitate. Aspire to be and do like them, but never desire to be them. Be a student, not a follower. Achieve your own greatness through your own uniqueness. Be a leader.”

“...be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again.”

“It reminds me of sitting window seat on a plane. I look out and onto the ground and I see everyone’s little houses. They’ve got their own perfect square of land, with a roof of their own, with a tree of their own, their own fence. There’s something so artificial to it when you zoom out. Our own tree in the front yard may be large, but they aren’t rooted in a true forest. Their house could be painted gold, but the street isn’t. Everything we have is just enough for our eyes to see. I feel like we’re meant for more. More than decorations. Sometimes, even though I know it’s not possible, I feel like everyone deserves their own forest.”

“There was a car in the back of the lot, under a fruitful tree. Feet on the steering wheel was a beautiful woman who sought and received harmony. She didn’t measure time by hours or minutes. She measured it by phrases like, “After this glass of red.” She never stopped the car until “the right final song plays.” She didn’t count her days Monday–Friday, but existence to her was checkpointed by the names of people she met last. She didn’t listen to rules about when it was okay to fuck—the first date or third—because when the moments asked for love, she had it. She didn’t sleep when it was dark, she slept when she was fully exhausted, and so worked until drainage, trusting her body was smart enough to solve itself during sleep. She was sleeping right now—aged with the kind of thin wrinkles that told you resveratrol gave a good fight. This was a woman embracing the wild, various interests of the heart. You may have thought freedom was attained by irresponsibility, by the immature seeking the easy, but it took great discipline to be free. You could call her homeless or you could call her earthbound, indecisive or multi-talented, unemployed or honest, spacey or intelligent. What good were words to describe a kind of radiant harmony best explained by her accomplished snoring?”

“People don’t know what to do when they encounter someone different. History hides a whole world of talented people we have never known because bright minds surrendered to the advice of small thinkers. “You got a great voice, kid—now go check on the cattle and don’t forget to lock the entrance.” And you spent so much time trying to convince everyone to appreciate some small idea or gift. They won’t know. They will never understand ideas until they happen. They don’t believe in start-ups, but love success stories. They won’t encourage your singing career, but love the radio. We ought to fly away from everyone and everything and right when we’ve launched far enough in space to risk no return, we can then come back to earth as us.”

“Diary, do you know the best part of an ice cream bar? It’s the end part after you’ve eaten most of the bar, where the rectangular base chocolate flake pokes out. You have to tilt your head and bite off the bottom scrap of chocolate. Yeah. That place. I always lick it a few times too. Why is it so interesting? Because it’s definitive...it’s something again. The whole bar is predictable until you reach its finale, where the texture is its own. If people were ice creams, most would slip out of the stick, never deciding to be, never knowing they haven’t decided. We must be our own surface.”