Jen > Jen's Quotes

“You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.”
― Rohinton Mistry

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“Character comes from following our highest sense of right, from trusting ideas without being sure they’ll work.”
― Richard Bach, One

“Listen,' he said. 'It's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions

“Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.”
― Richard Bach

“Wrong turns are as important as right turns. More important, sometimes.”
― Richard Bach, One

“Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“We teach best what we most need to learn.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.”
― Richard Bach

“Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? ... The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“It doesn’t take time to change once you understand the problem...Somebody hands you a rattlesnake, it doesn’t take long to drop it, does it?”
― Richard Bach, One

“You seek problems because you need their gifts.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.”
― Richard Bach

“All the people, all the events in your life are put there for a reason. What you choose to do with them is up to you”
― Richard Bach

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

“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
― Anne Lamott

“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”
― Anne Lamott

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“I am all the ages I've ever been.”
― Anne Lamott

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”
― Anne Lamott

“Jealousy always has been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed. I’ve had many years of recovery and therapy, years filled with intimate and devoted friendships, yet I still struggle. I know that when someone gets a big slice of pie, it doesn’t mean there’s less for me. In fact, I know that there isn’t even a pie, that there’s plenty to go around, enough food and love and air.

But I don’t believe it for a second.

I secretly believe there’s a pie. I will go to my grave brandishing my fork.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“Joy is the best makeup.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?”
― Richard Bach

“I worry that Jesus drinks himself to sleep when he hears me talk like this.”
― Anne Lamott

“Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.”
― Anne Lamott