Words matter. These are the best Regina Brett Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The only gift my dad ever bought me is still in my jewelry box. It died at 10 minutes to 11 decades ago, but the gold Caravelle watch keeps my dad alive. A watch isn’t about keeping time. It’s about stopping it.
Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.
The last watch I wore felt like a handcuff. When I need to know the time, I check my cell phone.
Almost every month, I have a day where I get stuck in the mud of me. I used to blame hormones and PMS. After I hit 50, I blamed the lack of hormones. But men get stuck, too, so it must simply be the human condition.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
Most of life is showing up. You do the best you can, which varies from day to day.
I grew up Catholic. We went to confession on Saturday, stood in the shortest line, since it led to the priest who gave the easiest penance – usually a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys. We confessed in private, prayed our penance and our souls were clean.
If we want our daughters to honor their bodies, they need to hear us honor ours, no matter what size or shape we are, no matter what scars or sags we see in that mirror.
While journalists cannot right every wrong, champion every cause or fix every problem, they can – through the written word – lift someone’s burden for a day, make some elderly woman on a bus smile or let them know they are noticed by someone.
When you have cancer, it’s like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn’t want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.
Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn’t looking down at a device in their hands? We’ve become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big picture, the people right in front of us.
A book store is a treasure chest. Every time you walk in one, you strike gold.
Going through chemo is like investing money in a retirement account. You feel the hit right now, but later in life you get to reap the benefits – by still being alive.
The idea of being stuck in a plane with dozens of people chatting over each other on their phones might feel like Dante’s 10th circle of hell.
As much as the Pulitzer is the hallmark of journalism, I think what I love the most is when somebody says they took my column and it’s in their wallet. I have had people open their wallet and show me a corner of a column.
No matter how I feel, I get up, dress up, and show up for life. When I do, the day always serves up more than I could have hoped for. Each day truly is a slice of heaven. Some days the slices are just smaller than others.
We need to be smarter than our smart phones and realize the people we are with are more important than the people we aren’t with, and way more important than the strangers we hope will tweet and like and share and Instagram whatever we’re sending out into the cybersphere.
Family is more than DNA, more than who we used to be, more than we can imagine we will become.
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
We all have that power to have a soul that magnifies God.
It’s easier to forgive those who hurt you than those who hurt the people you love.
I usually give a book 40 pages. If it doesn’t grab me by then, adios. With young adult books, you can usually tell by Page 4 if it’s worth the time. The author establishes the conflict early, sometimes in the first sentence. The themes of hope, family, friendship and overcoming hardship appeal to most everyone.
If you want to lose 40 pounds, you order salad instead of fries. If you want to be a better friend, you take the phone call instead of screening it. If you want to write a novel, you sit down and write a single paragraph. It’s scary to make major changes, but we usually have enough courage to take the next right step.
When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.
It takes tough love to order kids to step away from the iPhone or iPad during dinner or to take the devices away if they’re interrupting and interfering with everyone else’s pleasure at a movie, concert or other public event.
My life used to be like that game of freeze tag we played as kids. Once tagged, you had to freeze in the position you were in. Whenever something happened, I’d freeze like a statue, too afraid of moving the wrong way, of making the wrong decision. The problem is, if you stand still too long, that’s your decision.
Back when I was dating, the dreaded C word was Commitment. As soon as most men found out I had a child, they ran. If I ever got close enough to say the words, ‘I love you,’ they ran faster.
If no one shopped on Thanksgiving Day, the stores wouldn’t open. End of story. I say we all take the pledge and stay home. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for what you have, not to save a few dollars to get more.
When you write a book, you are asking someone to make an investment in their time and money. A column can come and go as the weeks pass, but a book needs to be timeless.
For me, being Catholic was who I was and who I am, just like I’m Irish and Slovak. It’s just so ingrained in us.
Sometimes you have to censor books. When I read ‘Peter Rabbit,’ I skip the part about Peter’s father ending up in one of Mrs. McGregor’s pies. I also hid the book of ‘Grimm Fairy Tales.’ They’re just too grim for my grandkids. Reality will come soon enough.
The secret to success, to parenting, to life, is to not count up the cost. Don’t focus on all the steps it will take. Don’t stare into the abyss at the giant leap it will take. That view will keep you from taking the next small step.
