'I've come to the conclusion that life is for the taking and just too short to dwell on the negative.'

'At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.'

- Singer Tina Turner (1993–2023)

'You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.'

- Musician and activist Joan Baez (1941-present)

'Fear of life closes off more opportunities for us than fear of death ever does.'

- Actress Agnes Moorehead (1900–1974)

'Don’t try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won’t live long enough to find out about, but I’m still curious about them.'

- Actress Betty White (1922-2021)

'It takes a lot of courage to be happy, but I've got courage, so I think I will be happy again.'

- Actress Florence Henderson (1934–2016)

'Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.'

- Actress Julie Andrews (1935 - present)

'The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.'

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'Live a life so when I die, there's standing room only.'

- Tim McGraw (1967-present)

'If you can't do it with feeling, don't.'

-Singer Patsy Cline (1932-1963)

'In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.'

-Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.'

- Musician George Harrison (1943–2001)

A quote by Magic Johnson

"Celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had."

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

'After you make a fool of yourself a few hundred times, you learn what works.'

- Musician Gwen Stefani (1969-present)

'May your future be limited only by your dreams.'

- Teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe (1948-1986)

Joan Didion's 1975 commencement speech at UCR encouraged graduates to think outside of themselves

Filled with many widely circulated quotes, the talk addresses people's tendency to focus only on their personal ideologies and perceptions of the world. Didion advocates for being an active participant in the world, rather than existing only in our own bubbles.

'Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.'

- Rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.'

- Poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

'Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.'

- Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (1946-1991)

O’Connor’s mother insisted her daughter’s corpse smile

At 39, Flannery O’Connor died from lupus. Sally Fitzgerald privately recounted that Regina O’Connor asked a mortician to have the deceased Flannery’s face be fixed in a smile “with the teeth showing.” Ironically, it was a detail that would’ve been at home in one of her daughter’s stories.

'The bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.'

- Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007)

The tragic history of 'the 27 Club'

Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide followed an eerie pattern in rock 'n' roll history: Several of the music's brightest stars' lives end at the age of 27. That group includes Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Amy Winehouse. This exploration of the phenomenon delves into the eerie and tragic circumstances that continue to shape its relevance.

Judee Sill's admirers hear a legend gone before her prime

The singer-songwriter released only two albums in her lifetime: 1971's self-titled and 1973's "Heart Food." Critics and contemporaries (including Graham Nash and David Crosby) praised both, though they were commercial flops. She died of a drug overdose in 1979 and had grown so obscure by then that no obituary was published. In the early 2000s, her recordings were reissued and found a new generation of fans.

A failed resolution still defines directional exploration

The new year practice of making resolutions is so popular it can often inspire ironic dismissal from those all-too-aware of how many fail. This piece argues failure doesn't matter: Making the resolution itself helps define one's focus in life, arguably more important than racking up achievements.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.