Michael J. Fox

50 Uplifting Michael J. Fox Quotes That'll Turn You Into A Full-Fledged Optimist

No matter what, you should always look up. 
Holly Riordan
June 22, 2016
“One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: dignity, Self-Esteem
“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: excellence, Perfection, God
“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future
Tagged: Happiness, Acceptance, Expectations
“A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Creativity, Hard Work
“Happiness is a decision.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Happiness, decision, Optimism
“What other people think of me is not my business.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Reputation, Self-Esteem
“The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: purpose, Goals, Passion
“Every failure I have considered my own, but every success has been shared.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: Failure, Success, Hard Work
“The only unavailable choice was whether or not to have Parkinson's. Everything else was up to me.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: Choices, Destiny, Decisions
“After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Learning, Pain, Suffering
“It seems to me that the quality of a moment in time is not always a reflection of the moment in and of itself—what happens before and what happens after are often what give it its savor.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: enjoy life, Past, Future
“If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without a moment's hesitation, tell you to take a hike.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Pain, Suffering, God
“My notion of spirituality was different than it is now, but even if I'd been the most fundamentalist of believers, I would have assumed that God had better things to do than arbitrarily smite me with shaking palsy.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Spirituality, God, Suffering
“Remember, though you, alone, are responsible for your own happiness, its still okay to feel responsible for someone else's.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Happiness, Friendship, Love
“Pay attention to what's happening around you. Read the book before you see the movie.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: enjoy life, Books, Reading
“If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today.”
— Michael J. Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future
Tagged: Past, present, Future
“Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Control, university, Education, Learning
“Don’t spend a lot of time imagining the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Pessimism, Optimism
“I didn't take a single photograph while I was there, but that's not all that unusual for me [...] The act of lifting up the camera and positioning it between me and the object of my interest separates me from the experience.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: live in the moment, enjoy life, Experience
“What's happened before and what may happen later can't be as important as what's happening now.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Past, present, Future
“If you don't take the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Hard Work, Success, Time
“Optimism is a cure for many things.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: Optimism, cure, Suffering
“Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be--right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once).”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Optimism, enjoy life, Pessimism
“You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: Suffering, silver lining, Opportunity
“Live and try.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: enjoy life, Work Hard, Life
“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.”
— Michael J Fox, The Trader's Pendulum
Tagged: Acceptance, resignation, Understanding
“I might have skipped class, but I didn't miss any lessons.”
— Michael J Fox, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
Tagged: Lessons, Education, Learning
“Sure, it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with Parkinson's, I've learned that what is important is making that step count.”
— Michael J Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Tagged: Moving Forward, setbacks, Optimism
“Our challenges don't define us. Our actions do.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Challenges, Suffering, actions
“The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.”
— Michael J Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir
Tagged: Expectations, Acceptance, Happiness