Suzanne > Suzanne's Quotes

“Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.”
― Mae West

“How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?”
― Howard Zinn

“I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”
― Howard Zinn

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth”
― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
― Pema Chodron

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”
― Pema Chodron

“Having a lover/friend who regards you as a living growing criatura, being, just as much as the tree from the ground, or a ficus in the house, or a rose garden out in the side yard... having a lover and friends who look at you as a true living breathing entity, one that is human but made of very fine and moist and magical things as well... a lover and friends who support the ciatura in you... these are the people you are looking for. They will be the friends of your soul for life. Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

“Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the writer . . . and on the reader.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“If you have yet to be called an incorrigable, defiant woman,
don't worry, there is still time”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“You look ridiculous if you dance
You look ridiculous if you don't dance
So you might as well
dance.”
― Gertrude Stein, Three Lives

“We are always the same age inside. ”
― Gertrude Stein

“I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to get rich. ”
― Gertrude Stein

“Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing. ”
― Gertrude Stein

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
― Anais Nin

“How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?”
― Anais Nin

“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

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anais Nin

“All life is created in love, and thus in the depths of every human being lies a good heart. Some have lost their path from this love, so it up to us to show them the way.”
― Julia Butterfly Hill

“To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first.”
― Janeane Garofalo

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
― Carter Crocker

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― Joan Powers, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
― Rumi

“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
― Rumi

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within