Helena B > Helena's Quotes

“You're not required to save the world with your creativity. Your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words, it also doesn't have to be important. For example, whenever anyone tells me that they want to write a book in order to help other people I always think 'Oh, please don't. Please don't try to help me.' I mean it's very kind of you to help people, but please don't make it your sole creative motive because we will feel the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”
― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
― Anne Lamott

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“All other things held constant, to the extent that an individual or society sees, believes in, and acts in abundance, so will it have wealth and happiness.”
― David Cameron Gikandi, A Happy Pocket Full of Money: Infinite Wealth and Abundance in the Here and Now

“To build external wealth, build internal value and then exercise it.”
― David Cameron Gikandi, A Happy Pocket Full of Money, Expanded Study Edition: Infinite Wealth and Abundance in the Here and Now

“You need not predict exactly how things will work out; all you need to do is desire, intend, and know it's possible—and it will be arranged to come to you.”
― David Cameron Gikandi, A Happy Pocket Full of Money, Expanded Study Edition: Infinite Wealth and Abundance in the Here and Now

“If you use your mind to constantly ramble on inside your head thinking about the past and future, all you do is live in the past, worry about the future, and lose the joy of Now. And anyway, that is not a good formula for creating a future. All problems exist only in the mind; they cannot exist in Now. In Now, you always pass. You cannot fail Now. Not two seconds from now, or five hours from now, but right Now. All problems exist outside of Now, in your mind; they arise when you use your mind incorrectly.”
― David Cameron Gikandi, A Happy Pocket Full of Money, Expanded Study Edition: Infinite Wealth and Abundance in the Here and Now

“The fastest way to create is simply to be, right now, whatever you wish to create. Then do not negate it by thought. Do not think about it. Just be. All your thoughts, words, and actions after that should be of the new state you chose to be.”
― David Cameron Gikandi, A Happy Pocket Full of Money, Expanded Study Edition: Infinite Wealth and Abundance in the Here and Now

“You don’t get what you don’t fight for.”
― Johann Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again

“The truth is: It is a privilege to have your body looked for.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Maybe, the only reason we fall in love
is to see what we look like to someone else."

("The Lover as a Cult")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“What is more teen girl than not being loved, but wanting it so badly that you accept the smallest crumb and call yourself full?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“I want to know
what it means to survive
something.
does it just mean
I get to keep my body?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“If you have a son, how will you love him?
She is pacing the living room,
while the Thanksgiving Day Parade
plays behind her, a montage of inflated
cartoon bodies, floating slow
down 6th Avenue, smiles
painted onto their faces.

I consider not responding.
I consider explaining that I can love him and not trust him. I consider saying that I won’t
love him at all. Just to scare her. Instead, I say,

If I am ever murdered, like,
body found in a ditch, mouth
stuffed with dirt, stocking
around my neck, identified
by my toenails, please don’t go
looking for a guilty woman.

("My Grandmother Asks Why I Don't Trust Men")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“16. Laughter is not about humor,
it is about acknowledging a shared joy.
Laughter is about bonding.

EXAMPLE: WHEN I HEAR MEN LAUGHING,
I DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM.
I CRAWL HOME IN THE DARK.

("Mans/Laughter")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Reader, I cannot promise you will be less afraid when you finish this book, but I hope you will feel more able to name what lives inside you.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“A memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One