“It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.”

The entire speech is brilliant, and Conan’s simple, short seriousness in the last few minutes is what makes this a memorable, attention span-holding speech that resounds with this generation.

“ Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”

- Samuel Palmer

My words not ~2.5 years ago. And now, I sit on the verge of 9,000 tweets.

To quote Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz:

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way”

I never knew how much you enjoyed my writing the random links until I quit writing posting the random links.

Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.

- Bill Watterson

The following interaction from The Incredibles crossed my mind while reading this article yesterday. Read into it or deduct whatever you will.

Helen: “Everyone’s special, Dash.”
Dash: “Which is another way of saying no one is.”

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

- Mark Twain

“People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“I don’t always know what I’m talking about but I know I’m right.”

- Muhammad Ali

“‘I’m the greatest’ — not if you have to say it.”

Don Draper

Only, in his alcohol-induced state Don could say it best. Good Lord, that was an amazing episode.

I purchased Rework over the weekend and can’t put my Kindle down. Below I pulled a few of the chapter titles and quotes that struck a cord.

If you’re in a fast-paced, growing company, you’ll love this book. Those in the tech sector will find the book quite appealing due to the background of the authors. The work is the product of the brains behind the business, and the incredible blog at 37signals.

“I bought a doughnut, and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don’t need a receipt for the doughnut. I’ll just give you the money, and you give me the doughnut… end of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I just can’t imagine a scenario where I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend: “Don’t even act like I didn’t get that doughnut! I got the doc-u-men-tation right here… oh, wait it’s at home… in the file… under ‘D’… for doughnut.”

- Mitch Hedberg

“Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”

- Chuck Norris

“24.5 million Americans play some sort of soccer, and that’s the second highest number in the world behind China.”

- Andrew Swift, of Foreign Policy magazine

“Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

- Ronald Reagan

“For the Christian, ‘truth’ is not primarily about logical propositions or statements, but about an encounter with the living God himself, and the consequent struggle to try and put into words that greater reality”

- Alister McGrath

“Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?”

- Ichiro Suzuki

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

- Milton Berle

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

- Mark Twain

…from last night’s Super Bowl, regarding the Saints.

“You ever wait for something for so long that waiting for it becomes the something?” he said. “It’s like waiting 43 years to hear somebody say ‘I love you’ back.

“And they do.”