I was reading Barbara Sher. She had so many quotes I wanted to add that I gave her an entire page all to herself.

(I also feature a couple of her books on my books page.)

Quotations by Sher

I'm forty years old, and my happiness matters.
          — Gary, a client, quoted by Barbara Sher in
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

I hate being a grown-up. Having to learn things I didn't want to know really pisses me off.
          — overheard, quoted by Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

What is a midlife crisis anyway? "It's when you finally get there and find out there's no there there," said a friend, paraphrasing Gertrude Stein. 
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Most of us forget this, but something radical happened to our thinking in the United States when the soldiers came back from the war and our view of how we were supposed to act suddenly took a sharp about-face.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Originality and individuality were okay only in children, because children weren't important. Growing up meant facing the hard truth that life isn't supposed to be fun. Adults settled down, resigned themselves to the goals set by nature (breed, then quietly become obsolete) and culture (do the right thing — however the culture defines that at any given time). Growing up was the end of playing.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

. . . the very best addictive drugs are produced by our bodies when we're in romantic/erotic love.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Without gravity to work with, there can be no dance.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

I once heard a lecturer ask a large group of people the following question:  "How old would you feel if you didn't know how old you were?""  Everyone in the room — whether they were thirty or eighty — came up with the same answer:  They felt they were somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five years old.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

The only age that is invariable conventional is adolescence.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Teenagers don't rebel against other teenagers. In fact, no other group watches its peers with more intensity, scrutinizing the latest convention so they can conform precisely to it. At no other age do people suffer such agonies if they aren't allowed to copy their peers.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

You have no idea how you look;  you never did, and you never will.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

We were in a cult all right. So we didn't shave our heads and go out begging for money. We bleached our hair and went out begging for love.  What's the difference?
          — a client, quoted by Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Ask anyone, and you'll find that we all believe in the inalienable, God-given right to nonending good sex until we die of very old age. We believe — men and women alike — that life without passionate sex is simply not worth living, and anyone who has to survive without it is pathetic.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Individual success for the average person is a rather new concept in history, and an argument could be made that the United States was the first to bring it onto the world scene. . . . Europe has no tradition of ordinary people becoming successful. America has little else.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

We invented the notion of the winning business team, the football model, where the boss is the coach and we want to win for him. More than any country our grandparents came from, we worship the warrior, the athlete, the high roller.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Nobody famous ever frowns on the cover of a magazine.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

"Believe it and you can achieve it!" . . . "You create your own reality", or :The only limits are the limits of your imagination."   Catchy phrases, but if you fall for them, you're back in a narrow narcissistic focus where you care nothing for fate, weather, or the stock market, much less your own emotional needs. When you've sold yourself that bill of goods, you lose your respect for reality and become intoxicated with the illusion of your own potential.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

When Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, at that time two of the most famous people in the world, pulled up in their car to an opening of Chaplin's latest film, the fans went wild. They clawed at the windows and climbed over one another to stare inside. Bewildered, Einstein said to Chaplin, "What does this mean?"   Chaplin replied, "It means nothing. Absolutely nothing."
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

I think the reason I want to run away from home is that the person who lives there is turning forty.
          — a client, quoted by Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Just note what's missing from any endangered species list, and you'll know what we're afraid of:  viruses, microbes and germs, mosquitoes, scorpions, cockroaches, houseflies, and dangerous snakes.
          — Barbara Sher,
                    it's only too late If You Don't Start Now

Quotation Pages On
James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door

This page created:
before
Wed, 16.Aug.2000

Last updated:
18:15, Thu, 27.Mar.2008