Joan Miller > Joan's Quotes

“Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life, just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It's all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, just be happy. You are already free!”
― Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
― Alan Watts

“Our lives are part of a unique adventure... Nevertheless, most of us think the world is 'normal' and are constantly hunting for something abnormal--like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
― Epictetus

“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”
― Albert Camus

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
― John A. Shedd

“Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back – and at some point everyone looks back – she will hear her heart saying, “What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage; the certainty that you wasted your life.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“America is a leap of the imagination. From its beginning, people had only a persistent idea of what a good country should be. The idea involved freedom, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness; nowadays most of us probably could not describe it a lot more clearly than that. The truth is, it always has been a bit of a guess. No one has ever known for sure whether a country based on such an idea is really possible, but again and again, we have leaped toward the idea and hoped. What SuAnne Big Crow demonstrated in the Lead high school gym is that making the leap is the whole point. The idea does not truly live unless it is expressed by an act; the country does not live unless we make the leap from our tribe or focus group or gated community or demographic, and land on the shaky platform of that idea of a good country which all kinds of different people share.

This leap is made in public, and it's made for free. It's not a product or a service that anyone will pay you for. You do it for reasons unexplainable by economics--for ambition, out of conviction, for the heck of it, in playfulness, for love. It's done in public spaces, face-to-face, where anyone is free to go. It's not done on television, on the Internet, or over the telephone; our electronic systems can only tell us if the leap made elsewhere has succeeded or failed. The places you'll see it are high school gyms, city sidewalks, the subway, bus stations, public parks, parking lots, and wherever people gather during natural disasters. In those places and others like them, the leaps that continue to invent and knit the country continue to be made. When the leap fails, it looks like the L.A. riots, or Sherman's March through Georgia. When it succeeds, it looks like the New York City Bicentennial Celebration in July 1976 or the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. On that scale, whether it succeeds or fails, it's always something to see. The leap requires physical presence and physical risk. But the payoff--in terms of dreams realized, of understanding, of people getting along--can be so glorious as to make the risk seem minuscule.”
― Ian Frazier, On the Rez

“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”
― Tacitus

“Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.”
― Peter Heller, Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
― Frederick Douglass

“My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow their heads and become concubines.”
― Trieu Thi Choi

“For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.”
― Naomi Wolf

“As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“If you're not comfortable enough with yourself or with your own truth when entering a relationship, then you're not ready for that relationship.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, and to do it courageously.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Don’t be disheartened by the forces of evil. Nothing can happen that God hasn’t allowed. Even resistance is all part of grand orchestration. The devil always has you right were God wants you.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“Take action on your inspired dreams”
― Bernard Kelvin Clive, Your Dreams Will Not Die

“I resolve that I would not die with my dreams unlived.”
― Leslie Mass

“Go to college for what you want to know, not what you want to do.”
― Chris Walla

“Bitch (noun): A woman who won't bang her head against the wall obsessing over someone else's opinion - be it a man or anyone else in her life. She understands that if someone does not approve of her, it's just one person's opinion; therefore, it's of no real importance. She doesn't try to live up to anyone else's standards - only her own. Because of this, she relates to a man very differently.”
― Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl―A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway.
If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”
― Ann Brashares, Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I'm happy. Which often looks like crazy.”
― David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

“If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life