• Columnists

Kathleen McCarthy, senior editor, Be Inkandescent magazine

A freelance editor and writer in the mental health field for the last 20 years, Kathleen McCarthy is the senior editor for Be Inkandescent Magazine, and also writes the magazine’s Parenting column.

In 2012, Kathleen became the manager of the new speakers bureau, InkandescentSpeakers.com, an international organization of small business experts that travel around the globe to provide best practices to entrepreneurs.

She also handles the editing, design, and layout for the monthly online newsletter of the American Mental Health Counselors Association.

As a freelance writer and editor, her clients have included government agencies, corporations, and universities. Before becoming a freelancer, she worked for several nonprofit associations, including the American Psychological Association, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the American Association for Engineering Education.

A deadline fanatic, Kathleen is zealous about the virtues of the serial comma and admires writers who can translate dense topics into artful prose. In her spare time, she likes to diagram sentences.

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

– Douglas Coupland

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”

– Gandi

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

– Robert H. Schuller

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"