Kayla > Kayla's Quotes

“Throughout my childhood I believed that what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about. It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“One may know how to conquer without being able to do it. ”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Adults can change their circumstances; children cannot. Children are powerless, and in difficult situations they are the victims of every sorrow and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all of these things but without any of the ability that adults have to change them. Whatever can take a child beyond such circumstances, therefore, is an alleviation and a blessing. I quickly found for myself two such blessings—the natural world, and the world of writing: literature. These were the gates through which I vanished from a difficult place.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“All important ideas must include the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. • To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition.”
― Mary Oliver, Felicity

“To see takes time, like having a friend takes time. It is as simple as turning off the television to learn the song of a single bird. Why should anyone do such things? I cannot imagine—unless one is weary of crossing days off the calendar with no sense of what makes the last day different from the next. Unless one is weary of acting in what feels more like a television commercial than a life. The practice of paying attention offers no quick fix for such weariness, with guaranteed results printed on the side. Instead, it is one way into a different way of life, full of treasure for those who are willing to pay attention to exactly where they are.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It meas learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light. —Hildegard of Bingen”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“The real problem has far less to do with what is really out there than it does with our resistance to finding out what is really out there.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“Pema Chödrön did not become one of my teachers until I had almost finished writing, but she diagnosed the problem so well that I can no longer say it without her help. We are all so busy constructing zones of safety that keep breaking down, she says, that we hardly notice where all the suffering is coming from. We keep thinking that the problem is out there, in the things that scare us: dark nights, dark thoughts, dark guests, dark emotions. If we could just defend ourselves better against those things, we think, then surely we would feel more solid and secure. But of course we are wrong about that, as experience proves again and again. The real problem has far less to do with what is really out there than it does with our resistance to finding out what is really out there. The suffering comes from our reluctance to learn to walk in the dark.1”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“What if I could learn to trust my feelings instead of asking to be delivered from them? What if I could follow one of my great fears all the way to the edge of the abyss, take a breath, and keep going? Isn’t there a chance of being surprised by what happens next? Better than that, what if I could learn how to stay in the present instead of letting my anxieties run on fast-forward?”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“The real problem has far less to do with what is really out there than it does with our resistance to finding out what is really out there. The suffering comes from our reluctance to learn to walk in the dark.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“how do we develop the courage to walk in the dark if we are never asked to practice?”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night

“Without benefit of maturity or therapy, I had no way of knowing that the darkness was as much inside me as it was outside me, or that I had any power to affect its hold on me.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

“Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good ‘less it was with the rest, an’ was whole.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“It can definitely take a toll on your soul in the long term. You cannot talk about your life, accomplishments, or anything meaningful (because you know you will be criticized, minimized, or ignored).”
― Ramani S. Durvasula, "Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility

“There is little interest in the child’s internal world, but the physical is managed well, and sometimes very well, leaving other people thinking that the child actually has a perfectly lovely life. It’s like having plenty of food but still starving to death.”
― Ramani S. Durvasula, "Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility

“Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it. —Robertson Davies”
― Ramani S. Durvasula, "Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility

“When I say acceptance, I mean bearing witness to what is true about yourself and your life—even the messy, painful, embarrassing parts—so you can respond to that reality. Acceptance is about being brave enough to look at who you are and not turning away or immediately looking for a fix when you don’t like what you see. It’s not about settling; after all, you may still want to make significant changes that will ultimately make your life better. It’s about grace—offering yourself compassion and mercy, even if you’re not totally convinced you deserve it.”
― Rachel Wilkerson Miller, The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

“Showing up is the act of bearing witness to people’s joy, pain, and true selves; validating their experiences; easing their load; and communicating that they are not alone in this life.”
― Rachel Wilkerson Miller, The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

“No one should ever feel they have to suffer in silence. We need to keep talking about mental health and continue to reach out to those who might be suffering.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“Why would he do this? I mean, i understand how low a person can get. I also know that when you're not in the best headspace, the trivial can turn into the insurmountable and all of sudden you're heading down a dark path and you can't find your way back.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“I also know that when you’re not in the best headspace, the trivial can turn into the insurmountable”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“Panic has a salty taste. It’s like I’m standing in a small glass tank and the tank is filling up with water. I’m guessing the water is coming from the sea, because of the saltiness. The seawater rushes into the tank. It’s already at my mouth, and in a moment it will cover my face and I’ll drown. There’s no way out of the tank. All I can do is wait as the water surrounds me. I stretch my neck up for that last bit of air. I’m gasping. And then, when I can barely catch my breath, it stops. The water recedes, always. I never end up drowning, but it doesn’t matter. The feeling of almost drowning is even worse than actually drowning. Actually drowning is peace. Almost drowning is pure pain.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“The choices always seem to be fight or flight, but I typically end up somewhere in between, doing exactly neither. I stay and I take the beating.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“After all these years, I'm a wizard at detecting even the slightest hint of disappointment in others, and any amount at all is unbearable.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“When our behaviors match our intentions, when our actions are equal to our thoughts, when our minds and our bodies are working together, when our words and our deeds are aligned … there is an immense power behind any individual.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative