Remarkable random moments we keep

Things People Say That Stay

Some of the most lasting things people say aren’t spoken by gurus or best-selling authors.

They come from strangers in elevators, popcorn vendors outside school gates, or someone standing next to you in line —
unintended poetry, tossed into the world without expectation.
And somehow, they stay with us, like a scent you didn’t know you’d love.

• I was about eight when I asked the popcorn seller outside my school:
  “Why do you smile if you don’t have your two front teeth?”
  He replied:
  “Always smile, little girl. Smiling is cheaper. And when you smile, others smile with you.”
  (I don’t think he knew he was quoting Lord Byron:
  “Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.”)

• Another time, I was late, grumbling about traffic inside a crowded elevator.
  A man turned to me and said:
  “Well, I don’t do anything in a hurry. Even if I’m late. If I’m late, I might as well enjoy it.”
  Then he stepped out one floor before mine, leaving behind a quiet masterclass in stillness.

• Years ago, I underlined a phrase by Brazilian advertiser Washington Olivetto:
  “The adventure can be crazy, as long as the adventurer is lucid.”
  I carried that line like a compass in my pocket.
  Ten years later, I read his biography — and met the man behind the sentence.
  Turns out, he lived exactly as he wrote: lucid in chaos, poetic in pitch.

• And then there was a piece of advice I didn’t even remember giving.
  Someone had asked how I managed to shift careers across such different fields.
  I told them, casually:
  “Try writing a CV not to apply for a job — but to introduce yourself to yourself.”
  Three years later, he messaged me on LinkedIn saying it changed his life.
  I had forgotten I ever said it — but he hadn’t.

The idea still holds:
“Nice to meet you. Here are my favorite stumbles, my secret talents, my most nourishing failures.
Here’s who I became, even when no one asked me to.”

These moments seem small — but they stay.
Like portraits from Humans of New York, they aren’t famous quotes.
They’re precious because they weren’t trying to be.

I once read one that said by Mary on Humans of NY:
“Mary is 93 years old. We spoke for less than two minutes. After I took her photo, she said:
‘If you force yourself to go outside, something wonderful always happens.’”
A tiny sentence. A whole new life motto.

Maybe that’s what life is:
a notebook full of remarkable random moments.
And every now and then, one becomes a remarkable, enjoyable memory.

Try writing down three of your own.
Moments you didn’t plan to remember —
but now you’re grateful
for buying popcorn,
for being late,
for listening.

Random, unintended poetry. :)

Beijos,

B
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