Sharon > Sharon's Quotes

“Humans, as a rule, don't like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead. But the definition of mad, on Earth, seems to be very unclear and inconsistent. What is perfectly sane in one era turns out to be insane in another. The earliest humans walked around naked with no problem. Certain humans, in humid rainforests mainly, still do so. So, we must conclude that madness is sometimes a question of time, and sometimes of postcode.

Basically, the key rule is, if you want to appear sane on Earth you have to be in the right place, wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and only stepping on the right kind of grass.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“If getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“A paradox: The things you don’t need to live—books, art, cinema, wine, and so on—are the things you need to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“And I knew the point of love right then.
The point of love was to help you survive.
The point was also to forget meaning. To stop looking and start living. The meaning was to hold the hand of someone you cared about and to live inside the present. Past and future were myths. The past was just the present that had died and the future would never exist anyway, because by the time we got to it the future would have turned into the present. The present was all there was.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“Laughter, along with madness, seemed to be the only way out, the emergency exit for humans.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“Politeness is often fear. Kindness is always courage. But caring is what makes you human. Care more, become more human.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“It is not the length of life that matters. It’s the depth. But while burrowing, keep the sun above you.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“You get up. You put on your clothes. And then you put on your personality. Choose wisely.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“A quark is not the smallest thing. The smallest thing is the regret you will feel on your deathbed for not having worked more.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“Don’t always try to be cool. The whole universe is cool. It’s the warm bits that matter.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“Soon, I told myself, I would understand what the heavily articulated greeting “get off the fucking road you fucking wanker” actually meant.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“One great question underlies our existence,” the Dalai Lama had said before the trip. “What is the purpose of life? After much consideration, I believe that the purpose of life is to find happiness. “It does not matter whether one is a Buddhist like me, or a Christian like the Archbishop, or any other religion, or no religion at all. From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No differences in our culture or our education or our religion affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment. But so often these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us and then flutters away. “The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Some of my friends are billionaires, but they are very unhappy people. Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside. “Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves. Often it comes from the negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us. The suffering from a natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“To tease someone is a sign of intimacy and friendship, to know that there is a reservoir of affection from which we all drink as funny andflawed humans. And yet their jokes were as much about themselves as
about each other, never really putting the other down, but constantlyreinforcing their bond and their friendship.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“Think about it this way. If your health is strong, when viruses come they will not make you sick. If your overall health is weak, even small viruses will be very dangerous for you. Similarly, if your mental health is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly recover. If your mental health is not good, then small disturbances, small problems will cause you much pain and suffering. You will have much fear and worry, much sadness and despair, and much anger and aggravation”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“You are better with your third child than you were with your first child. And so I would say to everyone: You are made for perfection, but you are not yet perfect. You are a masterpiece in the making.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“when we see how little we really need - love and connection - then all the getting and grasping that we thought was so essential to our well-being takes its rightful place and no longer becomes the focus or the obsession of our lives. We must try to be conscious about how we live and not get swept away by the modern trance, the relentless march, the anxious accelerator. The Dalai Lama was urging us to be more realistic so we can come to some sense of inner peace now, rather than always chasing after our expectations and ambition for the next.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“how mudita works: If someone has somethingthat we want, say, a bigger house, we can consciously take joy in theirgood fortune by telling ourselves: “Good for him. Just like me, he, too,wants to be happy. He, too, wants to be successful. He, too, wants tosupport his family. May he be happy. I congratulate him and want him tohave more success.” Mudita recognizes that life is not a zero-sum game,that there is not just one slice of cake in which someone else’s takingmore means we get less. Mudita sees joy as limitless.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“I once heard that laughter was the most direct line between any two people, and certainly the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop used humor to break down the social barriers that separate us. Humor like humility, comes from the same root word for humanity: humus. The lowly sustaining earth is the source for all three words. Is it any surprise that we have to have sense of humility to be able to laugh at ourselves and that to laugh at ourselves reminds us of our shared humanity?”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Ultimately, I think it’s about being able to laugh at yourself and being able not to take yourself so seriously. It’s not about the belittling humor that puts others down and yourself up. It’s about bringing people onto common ground.

If you can manage to downgrade yourself, if you are able to laugh at yourself and get others to laugh at you without feeling guilty that they are laughing at you. The humor that doesn’t demean is an invitation to everyone to join in the laughter. Even if they’re laughing at you they’re joining you in a laughter that feels wholesome.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“It’s about humility. Laugh at yourself and don’t be so pompous and serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it. You will stop asking, Why me? and start recognizing that life happens to all of us. It makes everything easier, including your ability to accept others and accept all that life will bring.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“But this being on Earth is a time for us to
learn to be good, to learn to be more loving, to learn to be more compassionate.
And you learn, not theoretically. You learn when something happens that tests
you.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Many people think that meditation simply means sitting and closing your eyes,” the Dalai Lama continued, closing his eyes and taking a stiff posture. “That kind of meditation even my cat can do. He sits there very calmly purring. If a rat comes by, it has nothing to worry about. We Tibetans often recite mantras so much, like Om Mani Padme Hum, a mantra invoking the name of the Buddha of Compassion, that we forget to really investigate the root causes of our suffering. Maybe my purring cat is actually reciting Om Mani Padme Hum.” The Dalai Lama laughed hard at the thought of his devout Tibetan Buddhist cat.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Anything that has a birth has a death, and
I am no exception.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Laughing at Ourselves to Develop Humor

Humor seems like something that is spontaneous and natural and cannot be cultivated, but the ability to laugh at ourselves and to see the rich ironies and funny realities in our lives is actually, like perspective, something that we can learn with practice over time.

1. Think of one of your limitations, human faults, or foibles. Think of
something about yourself that is actually quite funny when you can have some perspective. The Dalai Lama can laugh at his limited English. The Archbishop can laugh at his big nose. What can you laugh at about yourself? When you can laugh at yourself, you will let others feel closer to you and inspire them to accept their own limitations, faults, and foibles.

2. Laugh at yourself. The next time you are in a situation where you act in a funny way, or say something in a funny way, or are just less than perfect, chuckle at yourself and make a joke of it. Humor is one of the best ways to end conflict, especially when you are able to make fun of yourself or admit that you are overreacting or being silly.

3. Laugh at life. The next time you are delayed or something does not go your way, try being amused by the situation rather than getting angry or outraged. You will notice how your amusement puts others at ease and can often smooth the situation. Similarly, when you encounter certain ironies in your day-to-day life, try to see the humor.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“especially between intimates, there can be multiple hurts, and we often need to forgive and ask for forgiveness at the same time”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“May you be free from suffering. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you find peace and joy.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Simply smiling at others as you walk down the street can make an enormous difference in the quality of human interaction in your community. And it is this interaction that is most responsible for the quality of human life on our increasingly crowded and lonely planet, our affluent and still impoverished world.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

“Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don't have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“The only way to learn is to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library