I keep a running list of things that people have said or written that are really important. Here they are as I have currently...

‘It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.’- little old lady in a book store

"You don't have to be a big important person to write songs that are gonna touch somebody."
-Chenjerai Kumanyika, The Moth

"You have to realize there's one person in the audience of your concert who you are saving. You have to perform for that person."
"Perform so that with my ears covered I still understand and with my eyes closed I still do as well."
"You have to teach your audience. People don't enjoy classical music anymore because they don't know when to clap and what to look and listen for. In your case, tell your parents exactly what to listen for at the dinner before the concert."
"Anything followed by bless your heart automatically becomes okay even when it's terribly mean."
"When you've been learning something for a very long time, either pick a new song, I promise, there are many out there, or change the key."
-Dr. Tucker Biddlecombe Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music

"Friends should be like books, few and well chosen"
-Card in Country Music Hall of Fame Gift Shop

“Dad might think being gay is a sin, but he sees it more as a sign of human weakness, not Satanic interference. At least, I don't think he does. I figure it's between me and the Big Guy upstairs. We used to go to church a lot, and I never heard on word to make me think I'm some sort of abomination. If God is in fact responsible for creating me, He made me just how He wants me. And if He loved every bit of his handiwork, He loves me. And if all that is nothing more than mythology, what harm is there in believing the stories anyway? When I pray- or meditate, or consider the universe, whatever you want to call it- I find comfort. Self-acceptance. Understanding, at least in some world.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Tilt

Your first thought is what society trained you to think. The second is what you actually think.
-Tumblr Post

It's that last one that I think has made the biggest impact on me. I used to beat myself up so much for my first reaction to things. There was one day I remember looking at some girl at school and thinking: "wow she's really ugly." An awful thought but one immediately proceeded by, "no, she just doesn't fit the world's beauty standards. Everyone is beautiful." But despite that second thought I beat myself up for the first. Until I read that quote. What a perfect example of that in action. Do I still beat myself up for thinking things that are mean or dumb? I mean yeah, but it's easier not to now.