'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.'

'Life's short. Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands, and buts.'

'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)

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

- Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan (1971-2018)

'To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.'

- Diplomat Kofi Annan (1938-2018)

'All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate … I choose love.'

-Johnny Cash (1932-2003)

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

- Actress Agnes Moorehead (1900–1974)

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

- Tim McGraw (1967-present)

'The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.'

- American musician BB King (1925-2015)

A quote by award-winning actor Tom Hanks

"We are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?"

'The good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.'

- Billy Joel (1949-present)

'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)

'Voices ought not be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.'

- Iconic singer Sam Cooke (1931–1964)

'You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.'

- Hollywood legend Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

Revisiting the milieu of the Greenwich Village music scene

Few neighborhoods of the world stand out as more productive of a robust music scene than New York City's Greenwich Village, the bohemian launchpad of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and other folk artists of the 1960s and '70s. Expert David Browne discusses why it became so significant in this episode of "Sound Opinions."

'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.'

- Author James Baldwin (1924–1987)

'If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.'

- Activist Dorothy Height (1912-2010)

'When you come to a fork in the road, take it.'

- Baseball great Yogi Berra (1925-2015)

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

-Singer Patsy Cline (1932-1963)

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

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

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'It might be that some day I shall be drowned by the sea, or die of pneumonia from sleeping out at night, or be robbed and strangled by strangers. These things happen. Even so, I shall be ahead because of trusting the beach, the night and strangers.'

-Janet Reno, the US' first female attorney general (1938-2016)

A quote by Magic Johnson

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

'Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.'

- Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968)

'Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.'

-Reggae pioneer Bob Marley (1945-1981)

'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)

'Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success.'

- Musician Tom Petty (1950–2017)

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.

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

Joan Didion interviewed The Grateful Dead in 1967, before they became music icons.

'Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.'

- Judy Garland

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

- Musician Gwen Stefani (1969-present)

'One man can make a difference and every man should try.'

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994)

'Mockingbirds don't do one thing except make music for us to enjoy ... That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

-Harper Lee (1926-2016) in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

'You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.'

- Stevie Wonder (1950-present)

'I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.'

- Comedian Joan Rivers (1933-2014)

'The best way to make a dream come true is to wake up.'

- Fashion icon Anna Wintour (1949 – present)

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

- Musician George Harrison (1943–2001)

'A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside.' - Ella Fitzgerald

Ten writers and thinkers on what growing older actually requires of us

The Marginalian's Maria Popova curates a collection arguing our culture has learned to dread aging while forgetting it is a privilege, and that the antidote is sustaining passions strong enough to keep us from turning inward. Voices include Simone de Beauvoir, Joan Didion, Pablo Casals, and Kahlil Gibran.

Watch a 1965 press conference with Bob Dylan where he mocks the media's focus on celebrity.

'Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.'

- Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

'You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.'

- Frank Sinatra (1915–1998)

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

- Teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe (1948-1986)

Joan Didion's 1967 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' laid the hippie counterculture bare

Didion wrote a detailed account of living alongside hippies in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury area in the 1960s. Beyond their style and politics, Didion uncovered chaos, with one particularly shocking interview of a 5-year-old on LSD. Her stories challenged the movement's message of freedom and utopia in California.

'You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.'

- Actress and comedian Tina Fey (1970-present)

'Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!'

- Actress Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

'Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.'

- Willie Nelson (1933-present)

A Quote by Sandra Day O'Connor

"Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time."

Dylan opened for Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington

The apex of Dylan’s era as a “protest singer” was his appearance, alongside collaborator and sometimes-lover Joan Baez, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was the same demonstration where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Dylan performed four songs, including a scathing version of “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” a ballad about Medgar Evers, an activist who was murdered at his home in Mississippi by a white supremacist.