Update 13/01/10: I linked to Roland Millward’s post about Staying Positive in a Negative World.

Whilst channel hopping just now, my sister decided to watch Inkheart (an incredible film based on the awe inspiring books by Cornelia Fluke) and the first line I heard was “Don’t be selfish just because that’s how I wrote you!” which is such an amazing quotation.

If you have not read or watched Inkheart then you will wonder what it means, here is a quick background to the story. Basically, when a girl called Meggie was very young her father (Mo) was reading a book called Inkheart (yep, the book is based on a fictional book in the book… confusing right? Just wait, it gets worse!) when he accidently used his amazing, and somewhat magical, voice to read Meggie’s mother into the book! At the same time, he read many characters out of the book. One of these characters was Dustfinger, the person who author Fengolio was speaking to in the quotation.

“Don’t be selfish just because that’s how I wrote you!”

Author of the fictional Inkheart, Fengolio

The reason I find this quotation so powerful is that, although it is spoken to a character made out of written ink, these wise words relate to everyday life and I expect every single one of us has some use for it!

Think about the words. The first part is the problem, the second part is the excuse. “Don’t suck your thumb because Jimmy does it.”, “Don’t argue with your brother because your friends do.”, “Don’t become an alchoholic because your father was.” These are all valid points which come from that quotation.

It is all about ATTITUDE. If you use excuses all the time then you need to change your attitude. It may help to think back upon this quotation whenever you are in need of an attitude check!

As I am sure you all know about all of these, even those that do not pay attention probably know it, I am not going to talk any more about it. I would just like to say, if you have watched/read Inkheart then please share your opinions of it, also if you can recommend any other fiction (I love fantasty, and inspiring fiction is always a bonus!) then please do!

Whilst writing this (the first time around, I accidently lost it so rewrote) I was speaking to my good friend and mentor, Roland Millward, and he mentioned that he is currently writing a post about ‘Staying Positive in a Negative World’ which sounds the perfect complement to this post as it is all about attitude and having a positive outlook! So as soon as he publishes it I shall link you all to that post.Roland has now published Staying Positive in a Negative World… read it!