Mary Schmich Quotations

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.

Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York.

Opening day. All you have to do is say the words and you feel the shutters thrown wide, the room air out, the light pour in. In baseball, no other day is so pure with possibility. No scores yet, no losses, no blame or disappointment. No hangover, at least until the game's over.

Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views.

Every day each of us wakes up, reaches into drawers and closets, pulls out a costume for the day and proceeds to dress in a style that can only be called preposterous.

On an average day, we allow ourselves the fiction that we own a piece of our workplace. That's part of what it takes to get the job done. Deeper down, we know it's all on loan.

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.

Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you'll have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either of them might run out.

Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer.

One thing you might want to learn before you attend the world's largest ukulele lesson is how to say ukulele.

The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them.

Like many women my age, I am 28 years old.

Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right.

You can map your life through your favorite movies, and no two people's maps will be the same.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with those who are reckless with yours.

In twenty years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

The first gay person I ever met was surely not the first gay person I ever met.

The Hunger Games' isn't for everybody. But neither is 'Anna Karenina.

TV happens. And once it's happened, it's gone. When it's gone, you move on, no tears, no tantrums, no videotape

For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.

You can figure out who you were by which movies you loved when

If this escapade has taught me anything, it's that you never know what's in the future.

Over the course of that morning, I started hearing from a lot of Tribune readers, both on the phone and via e-mail, telling me that they were getting this commencement speech in their e-mail but they remembered reading it in my column,

Consider the lowly word if. If can launch any accusation into the public arena in the guise of fact. If can poison a life as surely as cyanide. Grease a sentence with if and you can skid from speculation to impeachment in the time it takes to say, Tricky Dick.

That's the central mystery of this whole situation, ... Digital Jam.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young

Books are like blankets, the mere sight of them around the house provides warmth and comfort. They are like mirrors, too, reflecting places I've been, phases I've been through, people I've loved or thought I did.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Do one thing every day that scares you. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Unusual commencement advice: Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They are your link to the past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Do not read beauty magazines. They only make you feel ugly.

The soul-sucking activity of TV-watching feels better when it is done with other souls.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Families are ecosystems. Each life grows in response to the lives around it

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft

Do one thing every day that scares you...Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own...Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Don't waste your time on jealousy...

All this situation does is remind people of the incredible power and potency of the Internet,