I’m not gonna lie–2025 was not a a great year for me. Besides world events and our current political conflagration, Hubs had some serious health issues. As Mama used to say, “It is what it is.”

If you follow me on social media (and if you don’t, please do! Links at the end of this post), you know I enjoy collecting inspirational posts and sharing same every Monday. So rather than the usual end-of-year summary, how about a shot of inspiration as we say good-bye to 2025? Most of these pertain to writing and/or the creative life, but there’s something here for anyone needing a boost of inspiration.

1/6/25: “Growth and comfort do no co-exist.” – Ginni Rometti, former CEO of IBM

1/13/25 “Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.” John F. Kennedy

1/29/25 “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

1/27/25 “When we think we need more discipline, we usually need more self-love.” – Tara Mohr

2/3/25 “Don’t talk, act. Don’t say, show. Don’t promise, prove.” – anonymous

2/10/25 “There’s no better teacher for writing than reading. Get a library card. That’s the best investment.” – Alisa Valdes

2/17/25 “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus

2/24/25 “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” – Thomas Paine

3/3/25 “Write something that’s worth fighting over. Because that’s how you change things. That’s how you create art.” – Jeff Goins

3/17/25 “May the roof above us never fall in. And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.” – Irish blessing

3/24/25 “Sometimes when you’re overwhelmed by a situation–when you’re in the darkest of darkness–that’s when your priorities are re-ordered.” – American musician Phoebe Snow

3/31/25 “When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” – Jean Shinoda Bolen

4/14/25 “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it.” Greg Anderson

4/21/25 “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” – Lisa See

4/28/25 “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekov

5/5/25 “Success isn’t about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson

5/12/25 “It always seems impossible until it is done.” – Nelson Mandela

5/19/25 “A good story is a dream shared by the author and the reader. Anything that wakes the reader from the dream is a mortal sin.” – Victor J. Banis

6/9/25 “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” – John Steinbeck

6/16/25 “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” – Tom Peters

6/23/25 “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket

6/30/25: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” – Henry David Thoreau

7/7/25 “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” – Ernest Hemingway

7/14/25 “I’ve written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but these things were on the side–I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.” – Stephen King

7/21/25 “Stories aren’t made of language: they’re made of something else…perhaps they’re made of life!” – Philip Pullman

7/28/25 “A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, at times any two of which can supply the lack of the others.” – William Falkner

8/11/25 “One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.” – Mary B. W. Tabor

8/18/25 “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren Buffet

8/25/25 “Life is not asking us to become anything that isn’t already seeded in us.” – Frederick Lalou

9/1/25 “I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.” – Anna Quindlen

9/8/25 “Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” -Isabel Allende

9/15/25 “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” – Aristotle

9/22/25 [Oops! This one was a repeat.]

9/29/25 “A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood

10/6/25 “Writing is delicious agony.” – Gwendolyn Brooks

10/13/25 “A writer is a world trapped in a person.” – Victor Hugo

10/20/25 “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'” – Mary Anne Radmacher

10/27/25 “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm

11/03/25 “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened.” – Ernest Hemingway

11/10/25 “Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” – Virginia Woolf

11/17/25 “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” – Arundhati Roy

11/24/25 “The point there is, it’s not about the schedule. It’s not about the frequency. It’s all about whether or not you’re writing. Even a little bit. Progress is progress. Doing is doing. Take yourself and this thing seriously. Don’t worry about what other people tell you to do.” – Chuck Wendig, Gentle Writing Advice

12/1/25 “The problems of the human heart in conflict with itself…alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.” – William Falkner

12/8/25 “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly–they’ll go through anything. You read, and you’re pierced.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

12/15/25 “When you rest, you catch your breath and it holds you up, like water wings…” – Anne Lamott

12/22/25 “The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul–BOOKS.” – Emiliy Dickinson

12/29/25 “Half my life is an act of revision.” – John Irving

Thanks for reading. Wishing you and yours a fun and inspiring New Year’s Even and an excellent 2026. See you next year!

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