icarter’s most recent Quotables

But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest.

When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

Leaders Choose Frustration

“Frustration is seen as negative because it doesn't feel good, but it is often not appreciated that you have to care about your vision of how things should be in order to be frustrated about how they currently are. A leader, by definition, should feel frustrated from time to time. The issue is what you do with it.

A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.

The greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in, the ones that swept you off your feet and challenged every view you've had.

Create Value, Not Jobs or Money

“The idea of 'creating jobs' is akin to seeking money for its own sake. A responsible leader isn't interested in creating jobs any more than they are interested in creating money. The deeper goal is to efficiently bring extraordinary value to the world. Job creation, like profit, is a byproduct of a business that works. In short, the question of how to create jobs is the wrong one.

If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything

When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.

You have a choice.. are you going to focus on maintaining the past, or developing for the future? Reacting to the problems of today, or mitigating the problems of tomorrow? Positioning yourself to act on upcoming opportunities, or chasing those that have passed?

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.

You only have so many breaths, so many hugs, and so many days to live, so shouldn’t you be head over heels in love with what you’re doing?

Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.

If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness.

Everyone says that love hurts, but that's not true. Loneliness hurts, rejection hurts, losing someone hurts. Everyone confuses these things with love; but in reality, love is the only thing that covers up all the pain and makes us feel wonderful again.

Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Loneliness is not lack of company, loneliness is lack of purpose.

What makes life worth living is knowing that one day you'll wake up and find the person that makes you happier than anything in the whole world. So don't ever lose hope and give up, everything turns out okay and the good guys always wins.

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.