85 Quotes by Mary Schmich

If this escapade has taught me anything, it's that you never know what's in the future.

Over the course of that morning, I started hearing from a lot of Tribune readers, both on the phone and via e-mail, telling me that they were getting this commencement speech in their e-mail but they remembered reading it in my column,

Consider the lowly word if. If can launch any accusation into the public arena in the guise of fact. If can poison a life as surely as cyanide. Grease a sentence with if and you can skid from speculation to impeachment in the time it takes to say, Tricky Dick.

That's the central mystery of this whole situation, ... Digital Jam.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young

Books are like blankets, the mere sight of them around the house provides warmth and comfort. They are like mirrors, too, reflecting places I've been, phases I've been through, people I've loved or thought I did.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Do one thing every day that scares you. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.