A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffett

• Everything leaves eventually in the physical form, but the memories of good people and good work are timeless.
• Life's adventures are the verses and choruses of your unique song, and when it is over, you are dead. Adventures don't come calling like unexpected cousins visiting from out of town. You have to go looking for them.
• Life is unpredictable, but there is a lot out there to do and see.
• There are no words to the song of the ocean, but the message is and always has been simple: not to forget where we came from. The melody is locked in the water that composes much of what we are. Most humans tend to ignore the song, but not all. You are one of the lucky ones who hold the melody in your heart. But be warned: it is a wandering song carried by the winds and the currents. It can turn you into a piece of driftwood that washes up on shore after shore, but one day, when you find the place that is meant to be, you will take root. Send me a postcard when you get there.
• Most people's jobs suck. You just need to find one that sucks less.
• Just don't panic, and it will be all right.
• I think darkness is the thing humans fear the most, for it takes away our advantage. In the dark, we have to rely on our instincts to survive, and as a species, those feelings haven't been around the track in a while.
• One man's cathedral is another man's fishing hole.
• Unrest of spirit is a mark of life.
• Contentment is a quality best suited for cows.
• We both had dreams, but my dreams were different than yours, and I had to chase them.
• I'm listening. How long will depend on your sincerity and honesty.
• I figured the best way to avoid trouble was to just disappear for a while.
• I think what connects some people to the art they like is not wishing they could paint it but rather wanting to be in the scene that the artist has painted.
• There are far more roads on which you may traverse life's paths than those that seem to have been preordained for you by others.
• There will always be those who feel more comfortable not venturing from the warmth of the hearth, but there are those who prefer to look out the window and wonder what is beyond the horizon.
• There is no beauty like that which overtakes us by accident.
• I have heard that even condemned prisoners in the foulest dungeons dress for dinner every now and then. They say it keeps them sane and human.
• Recordings are wonderful, but there is nothing like seeing a real performer work an audience live.
• If we're lucky, we can hang on to a piece of our childhood forever. The soft feel of a favorite blanket or teddy bear; the look on the face of your first puppy; the sound of the music played by the ice-cream truck. If we are lucky, these are the kinds of memories that keep us from growing old too fast.
• When you are on a mission, you must do what you have to do to succeed.
• Problems in paradise are just not as disconcerting as problems in a different climate or environment.
• A man has to be ready to go on a moment's notice, no matter how comfortable the moment might be.
• There is no reverse on the road of life, Tully. You just keep moving forward, and every now and then you try to catch a little neutral.
• It's all happening so fast. The world spins at one thousand miles an hour. This is nothing.
• You don't have to go looking for stories. The good ones will come to you.
• I think the reason the years seem to fly by is because they really do.
• Just goes to show you, money never does buy good taste.
• Hospital waiting is a strange state of existence. You're filled with your own concerns for you loved ones, but you are also suddenly part of a community of people who are dealing with the comings and goings from this world that our mortality presents.
• We are all survivors. But the trouble with being a survivor is that you find yourself dancing alone a lot. It is a tricky seesaw on which the survivor has to sit. On the one side is your ability to be comfortable in a world inhabited only by yourself. And on the other side is your desire to share your time with others. How do you balance? Being a survivor is not a bad thing, but you do run the risk of being the last one at the party when the punch bowl is empty and the confetti has turned to dust.
• Life is, and always has been, a struggle. The fishing pole bends heavier for some than others, and nobody has yet to figure out why--just as you never know, when you make a cast, if what attacks your fly is a finger-size baby snapper or a tiger shark that can turn you into bait. Still, we struggle with the rod just the same. Life to me is like a fish on the line. When it is there, you feel it. You fight it. You gain line. You lose line. But if that line suddenly snaps, or the pole breaks, or a thousand other problems occur that fishermen use as excuses when the tension is gone, you feel it even more.
• Grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate. And after a long enough time, the waters of your life get calm again, and that is when the memories of those who have left begin to shine as bright and as enduring as the stars above.
• The earlier in life we know we are part of something magical and mysterious, the better off we are.

6/1/2008