Quotes from Frank Bruni

Rejection was arbitrary. Rejection was survivable.

With a more expansive stretch, there's a better chance that I'll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private. Or when one of my nieces will need someone other than her parents to tell her that she's smart and beautiful.

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I'm convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.

Defiance or resignation? It seemed to me that both were in order, but the proportions of each had to be right. The mix—the recipe—had to make sense. The same went for hope and dread. I could wade into but not wallow in either.

If you maintain a robust agenda of activities, if you nurture a rich network of relationships, if you intellectually challenge yourself, if you pay attention to your diet, if you exercise regularly and vigorously, if you latch on to a sense of purpose

topic underscore how much contentment has to do with what we accept, what we expect and what we measure our current

It required attention, openness, humility. It required the recognition that something small could be enough, that something ordinary could be extraordinary.

Why me?" There's a better question, of course: "Why not me?" Why should any of us be spared struggle, when struggle is a condition more universal than comfort, than satiation, than peace, maybe than love? Should we even be calling or thinking of it as struggle, which connotes an exertion beyond the usual, a deviation from the norm?

As our physical muscles grow weaker, our emotional muscles grow stronger, and we're better at seeing the comedy in the tragedy, the advance in the setback, the good in the bad.

my favorite Congressional incongruity: ...Red State legislators galumphing from meeting to meeting in full pancake makeup. Estee Lauder may well make more money on Capitol Hill than in Beverly Hills.

He knew the particular and special solace of traveling down streets, pulling into parks, and slipping into restaurants that compose a living, breathing photo album of your path to the present.

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I;m convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes and even smaller part of it.

Graduates fared better if, during college, they did any one of these: developed a relationship with a mentor; took on a project that lasted a semester or more; did a job or internship directly connected to their chosen field; or became deeply involved in a campus organization or activity (as opposed to minimally involved in a range of things).

Thin people, God bless them, God curse them, don't get it: If you're not thin, you need to be careful and conscious about when and how you suitors initially see you.

I suppose there are people who can pass up free guacamole, but they're either allergic to avocado or to joyless to live.

While we have minimal control over the events that befall us, we have the final say over how we regard and react to them.

Shiatsu, deep-tissue or maybe even Rolfing: Which manner of pummeling becomes a cephalopod most?