Mary Schmich
Mary Schmich
Mary Theresa Schmichis an American journalist who has been a columnist for the Chicago Tribune from 1992, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2012. She wrote the comic strip Brenda Starr for the last 28 of its 60 years and she wrote the 1997 column, immediately famous, that is usually called "Wear Sunscreen", with the often quoted "Do one thing every day that scares you", frequently misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth29 November 1953
CountryUnited States of America
Consider the lowly word if. If can launch any accusation into the public arena in the guise of fact. If can poison a life as surely as cyanide. Grease a sentence with if and you can skid from speculation to impeachment in the time it takes to say, Tricky Dick.
If this escapade has taught me anything, it's that you never know what's in the future.
That's the central mystery of this whole situation, ... Digital Jam.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with those who are reckless with yours.
Over the course of that morning, I started hearing from a lot of Tribune readers, both on the phone and via e-mail, telling me that they were getting this commencement speech in their e-mail but they remembered reading it in my column,
Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.
You can figure out who you were by which movies you loved when
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young
Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right.
Every day each of us wakes up, reaches into drawers and closets, pulls out a costume for the day and proceeds to dress in a style that can only be called preposterous.
For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.
Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York.
A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.