". . . when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt -- that is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, not matter how slight."
"Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and you know it not.'"
"'Our whole business therefore in this life,' wrote Saint Augustine, rather yogically, 'is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.'"
". . . you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again."
"'I've already given it twelve months, Richard.'
'Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time.'"
"'Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place for it -- in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out . . . '"
"'People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you , and then they leave. And thank God for it.'"
"'See, now that's your problem. You're wishin' too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.'"
"'. . . nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin' her way.'"
"Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time -- when pursued like a bandit -- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you."
"Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well -- that would be the end of the universe."
"'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? and Who's in charge?' Everything else is somehow manageable."
"God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves."
". . . people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment."
"The karmic philosophy appeals to me on a metaphorical level because eve in one lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads agains the same old addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequences, until we can finally stop and fix it. This is the supreme lesson of karma (and also Western psychology, by the way) -- take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up the next time. "
"'I know cure from broken heart.'. . . 'Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your hear that this is destiny.'"
'"So what can we do about the craziness of the world?" "Nothing." Ketut laughed, but with a dose of kindness. "This is nature of world. This is destiny. Worry about your craziness only -- make you in peace."'
"I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women."
"'It's still two human beings trying to get along, so it's going to become complicated. And love is always complicated. But still humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried something.'"
"'To lose balance sometimes in love is part of living a balanced life.'"
"Naked in the morning sun, with nothing but a light blanket wrapped over my shoulders, I disappear in grace, hovering over the void like a tiny seashell balanced on a teaspoon."
"In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices."
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