Listen
With Curiosity
“If
you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New
York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. I was talking to Liz
and she said maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, that
maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I
can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you
stay.”
―
Gayle Forman, If I Stay
“You
get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.”
―
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
“But
how could you live and have no story to tell?”
―
Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights
“Listen
with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem
with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When
we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen
for what’s behind the words.”
―
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
“There
is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.'
No
matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our
hope, that's our real disaster.”
―
Dalai Lama XIV
“Throw
your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring
back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”
―
Anais Nin
“Life
has no remote....get up and change it yourself!”
―
Mark A. Cooper, Operation Einstein
“The
mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is
confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate
country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A
stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the
games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after
work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
―
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
“When
things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back
together again. It's because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends
couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed.”
―
John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
“Help
others without any reason and give without the expectation of receiving
anything in return.”
―
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
“Life
doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
―
Woody Allen
“Sometimes
it takes a good fall to really know where you stand”
―
Hayley Williams
“So
it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
―
E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly,
“The
most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to
endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
―
Ben Okri
“I
have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have
gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....”
―
Erica Jong
“Your
emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your
emotions.”
―
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across
Italy, India and Indonesia
“Laugh,
even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired.
Smile,
even when you're trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision.
Sing,
even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy.
Trust,
even when your heart begs you not to.
Twirl,
even when your mind makes no sense of what you see.
Frolick,
even when you are made fun of. Kiss, even when others are watching. Sleep, even
when you're afraid of what the dreams might bring.
Run,
even when it feels like you can't run any more.
And,
always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart. Because the pain of
all your experience is what makes you the person you are now. And without your
experience---you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric. What
makes you brave is your willingness to live through your terrible life and hold
your head up high the next day. So don't live life in fear. Because you are
stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before
it started.”
―
Alysha Speer
“Be
steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in
your work.”
―
Gustave Flaubert
“What
a strange thing!
to
be alive
beneath
cherry blossoms.”
―
Kobayashi Issa, Poems
“Anybody
can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty
girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old
woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a
master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her
exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to
be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an
armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old
and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you
feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew
older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done
to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were
never meant to be admired-but it does to them.”
―
Robert Heinlein
