I recently finished reading

Letters to My Daughters by Mary Matalin.

She had a few tidbits of good advice.

“Once you’ve determined you really want to be married and are confident in your compatibility, you will immediately start second-guessing your decision. You will start having daily, hourly bouts of incompatibility. Don’t be discouraged or disheartened. these feelings will recur all through your marriage. There;s always a way to make adjustments for mutual gratification.”


“Mrs. Bush broke into my frenetic, totally self-absorbed, purposeful psyche when she told these young women that “at the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent.” In the haze of time, I’ve come to call this precise moment my awakening. Bit in real life, real time, few moments are precise, and awakenings are more like gently stirring currents than jolting lightening bolts.”

“I should note that since I’ve been with Daddy for so long, my analysis may be skewed by his omnipresence. But he’s a fairly typical male-albeit a real extreme version of one. (And he does have more than a few characteristics that are neither male nor female, they’re intergalactic-another topic.)”

“Character is who you are and how you live day to day. It will save you from going over the edge and it will push you over the top. You can count on yourself, and just as important, others can count on you. There are no shortcuts to developing character. No one can give you character, but if you have it, no one can take it away.”

“Every situation is unique, but my general advice is never trade a girlfriend for a boy and never keep a best friend who steals your boyfriend.”

“Crying is not a weakness. Whining is a weakness, it’s m,y personal pet peeve. Crying is never whiny. Crying is cathartic and cleansing, no matter what the cause: great or tragic events, extreme anxiety or relief, exhilaration or grief, a goober love fest or screeching fight, button-busting accomplishments or humiliating failures.”

“If you’re doing what you love, you’re more likely to be great at i and work harder on it. Digging into something you feel passionate about will give you the personal security to withstand the critics and carpers.”

Quote from Theodore Roosevelt.

It is not the critic who counts; not that man who points out how the strong man stumbles or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up shot again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worse, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.