Quote collection
280 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."
"The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn something by being nothing"
"And I say to my heart: rave on."
"Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride, married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. Instructions for living a life: pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."
"I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings."
"And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?"
"Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak."
"So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life."
"There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god. And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier. I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around As though with your arms open."
"My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums."
"Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, Stay awhile."
"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination."
"It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it."
"We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it."
"If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it."
"How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light"
"Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness."
"We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body."
"There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But who wants easier?"
"... Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair."