124 books
—
72 voters
“A friend asked, "If increased awareness means less happiness, why bother?" No answer.
Three or four nights later I had a dream. I was driving. To my right I saw
baby cranes — blue-green, all legs, beak, and wings — standing in a field. They took off and crashed, took off and crashed. I stopped the car and got out. "That looks like it hurts. Why do you do it?" One of the cranes looked me square in the eye. "We may not fly very well yet, but at least we aren't walking."
I awoke, happy. From that moment, there has been no turning back.”
― A Language Older Than Words
Three or four nights later I had a dream. I was driving. To my right I saw
baby cranes — blue-green, all legs, beak, and wings — standing in a field. They took off and crashed, took off and crashed. I stopped the car and got out. "That looks like it hurts. Why do you do it?" One of the cranes looked me square in the eye. "We may not fly very well yet, but at least we aren't walking."
I awoke, happy. From that moment, there has been no turning back.”
― A Language Older Than Words
“I’d been the best leaper in K-9 class, which had led to all the trouble in a way I couldn’t remember exactly, although blood was involved.”
― Dog on It
― Dog on It
“Crises marked by anxiety, doubt, and despair have always been those periods of personal unrest that occur at the times when a man is sufficiently unsettled to have an opportunity for personal growth. We must always see our own feelings of uneasiness as being our chance for "making the growth choice rather than the fear choice.”
― If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients
― If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients
“There is the image of the man who imagines himself to be a prisoner in a cell. He stands at one end of this small, dark, barren room, on his toes, with arms stretched upward, hands grasping for support onto a small, barred window, the room's only apparent source of light. If he holds on tight, straining toward the window, turning his head just so, he can see a bit of bright sunlight barely visible between the uppermost bars. This light is his only hope. He will not risk losing it. And so he continues to staring toward that bit of light, holding tightly to the bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light, that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the darkness of the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the other end of the cell is open, that he is free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of the day, if only he would let go. (192)”
― If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients
― If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients
Jess’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jess’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Jess
Lists liked by Jess

































