Marla Friedman > Marla's Quotes

“Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”
― Martha Graham

“Genius is eternal patience. ”
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
― Rumi

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
― Rumi

“Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about… say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.”
― Rumi

“Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall and falling,
they're given wings.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.”
― Rumi Jalalud-Din

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”
― Rumi

“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”
― Rumi

“What you seek is seeking you.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“I know you're tired but come, this is the way.”
― Jalalu'l-din Rumi

“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
― Rumi

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.”
― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

“But listen to me. For one moment
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Not only the thirsty seek the water, the water as well seeks the thirsty.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

“Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”
― Rumi, Words of Paradise: Selected Poems of Rumi

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don't go back to sleep!”
― Rumi

“Drum sound rises on the air, its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says, "I know you're tired, but come. This is the way.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“You are the Truth from foot to brow. Now, what else would you like to know?”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“This that is tormented and very tired,
tortured with restraints like a madman,
this heart.”
― Rumi

“Within tears, find hidden laughter
Seek treasures amid ruins, sincere one. ”
― Jalaludin Rumi

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances.
That's not for human beings. Move within,
But don't move the way fear makes you move.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you've been given the door with open.”
― Jelaluddin Rumi

“Give your weakness to one who helps.”
― Rumi