Monique > Monique's Quotes

“Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.”
― Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“Somewhere beyond the sink-hole, past the magnolia, under the live oaks, a boy and a yearling ran side by side, and were gone forever.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

“The best thing to do was to brazen it out, throw your head back, walk with a swagger...”
― Sarah Waters

“I am here to live out loud.”
― Emila Zola

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
― Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“Books fall open, you fall in.”
― David T.W. McCord