I.J. Parker Quotes

Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.

The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.

The only dependable law of life - everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be.

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.

I like to have a martini/Two at the very most/After three I'm under the table/After four I'm under my host.

Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.

Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to.

Never throw mud: you can miss the target, but your hands will remain dirty.

Years are only garments, and you either wear them with style all your life, or else you go dowdy to the grave.

Community is a place where the connections felt in our hearts make themselves known in the bonds between people, and where the tuggings and pullings of those bonds keep opening our hearts.

That is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all together we can get control of a situation.

Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders.

Management is the art of getting things done through people.

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

I hate writing, I love having written.

If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.

White man goes into his churches to talk about Jesus, the Indian into his Tepee to talk to Jesus (with Peyote etc).

I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

Q: What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? A: You can't hear an enzyme.

I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.

The best innovation comes from inclusive work environments that foster diverse ideas, nurture people with diverse talent and backgrounds, and create strong relationships with diverse communities.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

Black eyeliner says 'You've been through stuff, you know things'.

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.

There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

We are here not only to transform the world but also to be transformed.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization, whence light and heat radiated out into the dark.

Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

I remember the day I found out my draft status. I was really floored and kind of staggered around in a daze. It just hadn't occurred to me that I could end up in Vietnam

My favorite musical? I don't. It changes all the time. I'm just a diehard, I'm totally old school, like I'll sit and watch, if they are re-doing Oklahoma in New York, I will be the first one there.

Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.

A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit!

Whatever you fix your eyes on is what you will encourage; fix your eyes on Jesus.

I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia.

Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.