Quote collection
62 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There is no experience like having children...If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children."
"Life is like a wrestling match- we struggle to fight but we never know that the only side that wins is the one with great love in it."
"The tension of opposites: Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle."
"All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well."
"Grieve and mourn for yourself not once or twice, but again and again."
"Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did we would do things differently. Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, "Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?"
"Acceptance is not a talent you either have or don't have. It's a learned response. My meditation teacher made a great point about the difference between a reaction and a response: You may not have control over your initial reaction to something, but you can decide what your response will be. You don't have to be at the mercy of your emotions, and acceptance can be your first step toward empowerment . . . For me, acceptance has been the cornerstone to my having an emotionally healthy response to my illness."
"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too - even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling."
"All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow."
"What's wrong with being number two?"
"I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with."
"The truth is, part of me is every age. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own."
"Are you trying to be as human as you can be?"
"What is it about silence that makes people uneasy?"
"Everything that gets born dies."
"We're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going."
"The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family."
"Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them."
"Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?"
"When you learn to die, you learn to live."