Roy Exum
In 2008 the wheels came off in my life. I was struggling with every kind of infection you could think of: MSRA, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Candida (in the blood), Clostridium difficile, plus fungal stuff and what they believed were even some protozoal types. Any of them can kill you and I had such an abundance, because of my lifelong osteomyelitis curse, I even had tombstone salesmen lingering in the hallway.
That year I had 29 different surgeries, where they’d wash out the infection, pack the wound with antibiotic pellets and take me back to the operating room time and time again.
I lost 50 pounds and, as I later found, over half of that year I was in a hospital bed somewhere. Medical geniuses, including Cauley Hayes, the late Winston Caine, my friend Jay Sizemore, plus the infectious staffs at Mayo Clinic and Vanderbilt, saved my life. But that isn’t today’s story.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a certified letter from my storage unit folks informing me they have just sold the building. In 2008, when I was so sick I couldn’t raise my head, I sold my house and my friends packed up all my “stuff” and put it into storage. While my life has taken a far-better turn – and I am void of that sick mass once identified as my right elbow joint – I just opened what was packed away eight years ago and I had totally forgotten.
There were many pictures, each triggering memories, warm and cuddly. There were plates and silverware, blankets, graying bed sheets and towels. There was even a container full of five pounds of Dixie Crystal Sugar. Go figure – eight-year-old sugar. There were also at least five Bibles, pictures of past girlfriends (who I had no idea how beautiful they were in retrospect) and a pair of cowboy boots.
I found some “Chicken Soup For the Soul” books that included stories I had written, dozens of my favorite books that still inspire me but – best of all – I put my hands on my long-coveted collection of quotes from favorite people that I was sure I had lost.
I have collected wonderful and wise quotes for the past half century. So today, indulge me as I pass along some of the wisdom that is simply priceless to me:
-- “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” – John F. Kennedy.
-- “I don’t believe anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it.” – Mike Ditka.
-- “Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.” – Anonymous.
-- “If I didn’t believe the answer could be found, I wouldn’t be working on it.” –Dr. Florence Sabin, the first female professor at a medical school in the United States.
-- “I never learned anything by talking. That why I listen.” – Lou Holtz
-- “With each new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
-- “In passing, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on a woman.” – Nancy Store, British politician.
-- “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or as Beethoven composed music, or as Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streets weeper who did his job well.” – Dr. Martin Luther King
-- “Without winners, there wouldn’t even be any civilization” – Woody Hayes.
-- “I am not afraid. I was born for this.” – Joan of Arc
-- “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do the best you can.” – Arthur Ashe
-- “I attribute my success to this: I never gave nor took an excuse.” – Florence Nightingale.
-- “I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to the prosperity of an honest man.” – Sam Houston
-- “I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever dreamed you would be.” – Ken Venturi
-- “When you make a mistake there are only three things you should do about it: 1. Admit it. 2. Learn from it. 3. Don’t repeat it.” – Bear Bryant
-- “Don’t watch the clock, do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson.
-- “We understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialog with natural in order to experience his own being.” – Ernest Becker
-- “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look that becomes a habit.” – Peter Ustinov
-- “The more we do, the more we can do.” – William Hazlett
-- “Good. Better. Best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is best.” -- St. Jerome
-- “Persistence isn’t a long race. It is many short races one after another.” --
-- “You have to learn the rules of the game. Then you have to play better than everyone else.” – Albert Einstein.
-- “Problems are not stop signs. They are guidelines.” – Robert Schuller.
-- “A Somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.” – John Burroughs.
-- “What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you can live – with your self-respect alive and growing.” – Maxwell Maltz
-- “Don’t give up. Don’t give up hope. Don’t sell out.” – Christopher Reeve
-- “I never complain and I never explain.” – Henry Ford.
-- “It is not so important as who starts the game … as who finishes it.” ---John Wooden
-- “My momma wanted me to be a preacher in the worst way. But I told her, ‘Momma, but what would I spend my money on?’” – Lewis Grizzard.
-- “A good sermon (story) should be like a woman’s skirt; short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials.” – Frank Knox
-- “There is only one way you can fail, and that’s to quit.” – Brian Hays
-- “Nothing in the world can take place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge.
-- “Don’t be evil.” -- Corporate slogan of Google.
-- “Never forget the six P’s of Success: ‘Prior Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance.’” -- Ralph ‘Shug’ Jordan
-- “It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you are tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.” – Robert Strauss
-- “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi
-- “Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.” Golda Meir.
-- “The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. –Mahatma Gandhi
-- “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” – Albert Einstein
-- “The heart of a fool is his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is his heart.” – Benjamin Franklin
-- “Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”” – Leo Buscaglia
-- “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” – Ambrose Redmond
Better yet, I have thousands of other quotes that I’ve now recovered. What a treat old friends can be.
royexum@aol.com