~ Mavis Leyrer


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13 Comments »

  1. If I could high-five Mavis I would love to!
    Easily one of my all-time favorite quotes.
    I love to be reminded of such a truth every time I read it.
    I’m printing this and hanging it up in my room. :D

    Comment by Roman Pinzon-Soto — December 2, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
  2. Rad. And true. An honest appraisal of why we really need to live in the now.

    Wonderful!

    Comment by BoulderPoet — December 11, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
  3. Anyone who likes this quote should also realize that by speeding to your grave, you have arrived much too early.
    So wouldn’t you rather live life to its fullest as opposed to living life like a fool in a hurry.

    Comment by Ron Grandison — January 9, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
  4. im well and truely guna skid into my grave, not guna ‘arrive to early’
    but guna do what i want to without hesitating. life is too short. thrash it out.

    Comment by Kelly-Marie Keet — May 24, 2009 @ 4:56 am
  5. Comment to Ron Grandison about Leyrer’s quote.

    Why do you interpret Leyrer’s quote as speeding to the grave?

    Comment by Quincey — May 25, 2009 @ 4:52 am
  6. I love this quote – it reminds you to live your life and not worry too much about the nitty gritty. For me it also tells me that although my body is not as I would wish it to be, the fact that I love life and enjoy my time here is what is really important.

    I intend to live life to it’s fullest and if I died tomorrow I can honestly say that I’ve had one hell of a ride on this planet speeding through space at millions of miles an hour!!

    Comment by Jane Finch — September 17, 2009 @ 6:55 am
  7. Oneof my favorite quotes. I’m putting it on my middle school newspaper’s quote page, which I’m in charge of.

    Comment by Liv DeHaan — October 3, 2009 @ 5:38 am
  8. Umm….except for one thing.

    Mavis was quoting Bill McKenna, a professional motorcyle racer, who was the person who originally said this during an interview for an article that appeared in the Feb.1982 issue of Cycle magazine.

    Comment by David Weinstock — October 15, 2009 @ 11:22 am
  9. I interpret this to mean Life is short don’t let it pass u by not taking chances and wondering what could have been…..

    Life is not a wading pool where u only try get your feet wet, Life is deep rushing river, Step up to the edge and DIVE IN HEAD FIRST!!

    Comment by Mike M — October 24, 2009 @ 5:49 am
  10. @ David Weinstock: the quote attribution is far more problematic.

    Your justification is good, and specific, but hard to check without the magazine at hand (and not proving he wasn’t quoting). However, other quote-collections specifically gathering Bill McKenna quotes do not include this one, so I tend to disbelief they all overlooked this very popular quote.
    E.g., http://thinkexist.com/quotes/bill_mckenna/ and http://www.quotesdaddy.com/author/Bill+McKenna … Worse, there’s an NPR blog attributing it to him, as “a paraphrasing someone sent in and attributed to McKenna,” http://www.npr.org/blogs/mycancer/2007/02/wow_what_a_ride.html — in other words, not trustworthy.

    The further problem is that I’ve seen so many different paraphrasing, involving “glass of wine in one hand,” or “strawberries and champagne in hand,” etc. Some paraphrasers feel the need to replace “WOW” at the end with “HOLY SH*T,” etc. A 2008 cartoon writes it out (lazy cartoonist) so some think that’s the source (yeah, silly).

    Oh, look, the same discussion is here, about the source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081214093617AA273kw

    Comment by Marvin the Martian — November 17, 2009 @ 9:16 am
  11. [...] Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid … [...]

    Pingback by Great Quote « The Stories We Could Tell — December 14, 2009 @ 9:13 pm
  12. Anyone who reads this would also realize this quote states nothing about speeding to your grave. It just simply states that when it is your time to go make sure you can look back on life with no regrets. Knowing you lived and loved to the fullest because you never know when tomorrow will never come.

    Comment by Heather Gist — May 17, 2010 @ 11:23 am
  13. this is actually a Hunter S. Thompson quote. attributed to him long before both Mavis Leyrer and Bill McKenna. The original goes:

    “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

    Comment by abuck — May 18, 2010 @ 9:08 am

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