Carmen > Carmen's Quotes

“So stay true to your own nature. If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don’t let others make you feel as if you have to race. If you enjoy depth, don’t force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi tasking, stick to your guns. Being relatively unmoved by rewards gives you the incalculable power to go your own way. It’s up to you to use that independence to good effect.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst the says, again and again, 'I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Certain things in life will cut you open like a knife. When that happens—at that exposing moment—the world gets a glimpse of what’s truly inside you. So what will be revealed when you’re sliced open by tension and pressure? Iron? Or air? Or bullshit?”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage

“Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“What were you before you met me?"
"I think I was drowning"
"And what are you now?"
"Water”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field-it was always there-where to be lost is never wrong, but simply more.

As a rule, be more.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“The cruelest walls are made of glass.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. —VIKTOR FRANKL”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

“The secret to falling in love so fast, of course, is not to know the person at all. You just need to identify one exciting feature about them, and then you hurl your heart at that one feature, with full force, trusting that this will be enough of a foundation for lasting devotion.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.”
― E.B. White

“I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye. I greeted it and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I've learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favored child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“I had to think before I could answer. “I can stand in this wind, because I’m not trying to stand in it,” I said. “The wind is just wind. You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air. There is no difference. Except the difference you make in your head.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“Rest comes when we become more by doing less, when we don’t allow the urgent to crowd out the important”
― Frank Ostaseski, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

“You have to open yourself up and let the pain move through you,” Elisabeth said. “It’s not yours to hold.”
― Frank Ostaseski, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

“Living authentically means that your choices and actions align with your core beliefs, values, and true self. It means that you choose that path even when there are consequences from the world around you.”
― Vienna Pharaon, The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love