Stress Reliever Quotes

“Bouncing on beds, I remember from childhood, is a great depression reliever.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“The only thing that kept me from wanting to die was the fact that I could leave my body and be in a body that worked perfectly for a while---better than perfectly, actually---with a set of problems that were not my own."
"You couldn't land at the top of a pole, but Mario could."
"Exactly. I could save the princess, even when I could barely get out of bed. So, I do want to be rich and famous. I am, as you know, a bottomless pit of ambition and need. But I also want to make something sweet. Something kids like us would have wanted to play to forget their troubles for a while.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“A deep breath is a technique with which we minimize the number of instances where we say what we do not mean … or what we really think.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I make 'Buela's recipe for sofrito that I'll use to season the ground beef. Softening the garlic and onions, adding tomato paste. This is the first step for most traditional dishes, the flavoring that gives a rich taste for everything from beans to stew. Then I brown meat and make a homemade sauce from fresh tomatoes. I grate fine shreds of mozzarella cheese and boil sheets of pasta. While the oven is preheating, I slowly layer my guilt, my hope, and a hundred dreams. I don't know if it means anything at all, but 'Buela has always said my hands are magical, and I use them now to put all my feelings into the pan.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“Cacao
(Theobroma cacao)


Theobroma cacao, translated from the Greek to mean "food of the gods," is one plant that will never let you down. Through the good times and the bad, in times of high anxiety and too much stress, during relationship problems when it seems that all of the passion is gone, when there is no one around to talk to, or when no one will listen, understand, or believe in you, Theobroma cacao, otherwise known as chocolate, is always there to make you feel better.”
― Margot Berwin, Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

“She decided to make salmon baked in a touch of olive oil, topped with pine nuts, and served over spinach flash-fried in the salmon-and-olive-oil drippings. She added brown rice that she had slow-boiled with the herb hawthorn. Just as she finished, Cordelia arrived with a woman she had found standing in the sidewalk out front.
"My husband has high blood pressure," she explained, negotiating the stairs down into Portia's apartment with care. "He's never happy with anything I make for supper, so I should tell you that you probably don't have anything that will work for me."
Cordelia took a look at the meal, raised an eyebrow at Portia, and then turned to the woman. "This is the perfect meal for your husband's high blood pressure. Fish oil, nuts, hawthorn, whole grains."
Next, a pumpkin pie went to a woman who couldn't sleep.
"Pie?" she asked in a doubtful tone.
"Pumpkin," Portia clarified, "is good for insomnia."
An apricot crumble spiced with cloves and topped with oats and brown sugar went to a woman drawn with stress. Then a man walked through the door, shoulders slumped. Cordelia and Olivia eyed him for a second.
"I know the feeling," Olivia said, and fetched him a half gallon of the celery and cabbage soup Portia had found herself preparing earlier.
The man peered into the container, grew a tad queasier, and said, "No thanks."
"Do you or don't you have a hangover?" Olivia demanded, then drew a breath. "Really," she added more kindly. "Eat this and you'll feel better."
He came back the next day for more.
"Cabbage is no cure for drinking too much," Cordelia told him.
He just shrugged and slapped down his money for two quarts of soup instead of one.”
― Linda Francis Lee, The Glass Kitchen

“I should have moved on, but I loved it here. I felt like a Romantic poet or Thoreau by his pond. I imagined myself chasing fair maidens barefoot through the trees and drinking from fresh streams. One can build their own life here without feeling the pressures of the outside."
Lee had never seen her hometown through this filter. Mr. Hall seemed to see everything through gossamer, the town's crumbling school and faded American flags shimmering like gasoline in water.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk