Cocoons Quotes

You go through your 20s sort of like a chrysalis in many ways, stretching into your own skin and trying to bust out of a cocoon. ~ Jonathan Rhys Meyers

The challenge of warriorship is to step out of the cocoon, to step out into space, by being brave and at the same time gentle ~ Chogyam Trungpa

A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention. ~ Aldous Huxley

There is no help for you, outside yourself; You are the creator of the universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Self-realization is a strange term. You don't actually realize your 'self'. If anything, you go away. The caterpillar enters the cocoon of meditation: A butterfly emerges - metamorphosis. ~ Frederick Lenz

For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I wish I could see butterflies burst from cocoons
Without tempering my amazement
Knowing all beauty eventually dies. ~ Justin Wetch

He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and ... he was a beautiful butterfly! ~ Eric Carle

I've come to hold the human spirit in the highest regard. Like the body, it struggles to repair itself. As cells fight off infection and conquer illness, the spirit, too, has remarkable resilience. It knows when it is harmed, and it knows when the harm is too much to bare. If it deems the injury too great, the spirit cocoons the wound, in the same fashion that the body forms a cyst around infection, until the time comes that it can deal with it. For some people, that time never comes. Some stay fractured, forever broken. You see them on the street, pushing carts. You see them in the faces of the regulars at the bar. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Dreams on waking were like empty cocoons of moths or the split-open husks of milkweed pods, dead shells where life had briefly swirled in furious but fragile storm-systems. ~ Stephen King

His dreams had always been Houdiniesque: they were the dreams of a pupa struggling in its blind cocoon, mad for a taste of light and air. ~ Michael Chabon

Your idea of bliss is to wake up on a Monday morning knowing you haven't a single engagement for the entire week. You are cradled in a white paper cocoon tied up with typewriter ribbon. ~ Edna Ferber

It was always a thrill for me, getting out of the cocoon and wandering. I'd let the wind wrap around me like fire and slip into the unknown with a moment's hesitation. ~ Corey Taylor

We require to get out of our own built up Cocoons, these need to be worn, softened and freed through. ~ Patricia Dsouza

The space that I can call mine.. is so small that my ideas have become small. I am like a caterpillar in a cocoon of paper; all around me are sketches for sculptures, small drawings that seem like moths fluttering against the windows, beating their wings to escape from this tiny space.. Every day the ideas come more reluctantly, as though they know I will starve them and stunt their growth. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly.
For courage she hung right beside the other cocoon and began to spin her own.
'Imagine, I didn't even know I could do this. That's some encouragement that i'mon the right track. If I have the stuff inside me to make cocoons - maybe the stuff of butterflies is there too. ~ Trina Paulus

No matter how much money you have or what kind of cocoon you live in, the reality is that you have lost a game of football and let England's fans down. We are bothered. ~ Rio Ferdinand

We try to get out of these cocoons and make our way down to where our bodies are. We try shoplifting and racist/sexist/ageist humor (trying to offend our way out); we get naked on stage. We try sleep deprivation and razors on our skin. We date creepy, scary sleazes who we half-hope, half-fear might do the cutting for us. But we're so used to living inside a dream, even cutting feels dreamy. We can't get out. We can't wake up. ~ Lisa Crystal Carver

Many tribal peoples consider illness to be one of the most reliable sources of revelation. Many of the practices that traditional religions impose upon seekers-abstinence, isolation, stillness-are practices that illness imposes upon us, so it is in a sense a cocoon that allows revelation to unfold. ~ Kat Duff

It's impossible to let go of the people we love. Pieces of them remain embedded inside of us like shrapnel. Every breath causes those fragments to burrow through our muscles, nearer to our hearts. And we think the pain will kill us, but it won't. Eventually, scar tissue forms around those twisted splinters like cocoons. They remain part of us, but slowly hurt less. ~ Shaun David Hutchinson

Time can do all sorts of things. It's almost like a magician. It can turn autumn into spring and babies into children, seeds into flowers and tadpoles into frogs, caterpillars into cocoons, and cocoons into butterflies. And life into death. There's nothing that time can't do. Except run backwards. That's its trouble really, it can only go one way. ~ Alex Shearer

Like caterpillars our metamorphosis begins with what comes from our mouth. Caterpillars spin silk cocoons from the mouth. We speak life or death, success or failure. All transformation starts with what comes from our mouth. ~ Brandi L. Bates

I acknowledge with great gratitude the peace and contentment we can find for ourselves in the spiritual cocoons of our homes, our sacrament meetings, and our holy temples. ~ James E. Faust

This may sound funny, but as much as the 'Today' show matured me, it also was something of a cocoon. I'd been happy there. I never went into the boss's office and pounded my fist on the desk, saying, 'Give me more money! Give me a prime-time show!' ~ Jane Pauley

The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind. ~ M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

Young people are growing in plain sight, there is no place for them to hide, no cocoon. It's hard ~ Rachel Vail

Change blows through the branches of our existence. It fortifies the roots on which we stand, infuses crimson experience with autumn hues, dismantles Winter's brittle leaves, and ushers Spring into our fertile environments. Seeds of evolution burst from their pod cocoons and teardrop buds blossom into Summer flowers. Change releases its redolent scent, attracting the buzz of honey bees and the adoration of discerning butterflies. ~ B.G. Bowers

I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or maggot. ~ Caspar David Friedrich

Oh, aging is ruddy unbearable! The I's we were yearn to breathe the world's air again, but can they ever break out from these calcified cocoons? ~ David Mitchell

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere. ~ James Russell Lowell

I could wrap myself in the warm cocoon of a song and go anywhere. ~ Johnny Cash

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. ~ Jasper Fforde

Grace is waiting for you. It's always there. It's always waiting. It doesn't pokes holes into our lives. We are the ones who poke the holes and let the light in, let the magic in. But there's no rush. There are no deadlines. There's comfort in staying in our cocoons. Only when we lose that comfort and feel overwhelmed do we feel forced to reach up for something greater. Or, we simply feel the calling for more. Either way, we start living on God's timetable and awaken to the beautiful mystery, and the things we had clinged to the most fade into pale substitutes. ~ Elizabeth Fox Brewer

Choice. It's the word that allows yes and the word that makes no possible. It's the word that puts the free in freedom and takes obligation out of the mix. It's the word upon which adventure, exhilaration, and authenticity depend. It's the word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar. ~ Tom Robbins

The digital world has been in a separate orbit from our medical cocoon, and it's time the boundaries be taken down. ~ Eric Topol

What was this future world where people aged so slowly? Were they protected in cocoons of silk? "What say ye? Are there no warriors?"
"There are soldiers who join the army - and they learn combat, but most of the fighting is done..." She glanced aside.
"Pardon?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
He snorted. "The fighting is done by banshees and fairies?
She threw back her head with a belly laugh. "Now that would be a good name for a video game. ~ Amy Jarecki

I think my iTunes is a kind of strange and embarrassing mix of show tunes and artists that I have no perception of whether or not they're huge or not, you know? I'm the kind of person who doesn't realize that The Arcade Fire is a big deal, but then I expect everybody to know Cocoon, and people tend to not know Cocoon. ~ Anna Kendrick

Nowadays we raise our children in a cocoon of domesticated security, far from any sense of risk or adventure. ~ Alan Hirsch

All human beings have the ability to transform like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon and taking to the sky. ~ Jim Rohn

We're born into a certain family, nation, class. But if we have no connection whatsoever with the worlds beyond the one we take for granted, then we too run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink; our hearts might dwindle, and our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons. Our friends, neighbours, colleagues, family - if all the people in our inner circle resemble us, it means we are surrounded with our mirror image. ~ Elif Safak

A silkworm was struggling out of the cocoon and an ignorant man saw it battling as if in pain, so he went and helped it to get free, but very soon after it fluttered and died. The other silkworms that struggled out without help suffered, but they came out into full life and beauty, with wings made strong for flight by their battle for fresh existence. ~ Sadhu Sundar Singh

I'm just a butterfly, a mourning cloak, sealed inside a cocoon with blnd eyes and stiky wings. And suddenly I wonder if the cocoons sometimes do not open, if the butterfly inside is ever simply not strong enough to break through. ~ Ally Condie

It's like before the Breakdown people used to spend their whole lives making cocoons for themselves out of furniture and ornaments and books and toys and pictures and any kind of shit they could find. As though they hoped they'd be born out of the cocoon as something else. ~ M.R. Carey

Most people walk around with headphones on. They're barely encountering or dealing with their fellow person, or if they're in a car they're in this kind of cocoon, stuck in suburban rush hour traffic or something. ~ DJ Spooky

There are men who bloom in chaos. You call them heroes or villains, depending on which side wins the war, but until the battle call they are but normal men who long for action, who lust for the opportunity to throw off the routine of their normal lives like a cocoon and come into their own. They sense a destiny larger than themselves, but only when structures collapse around them do these men become warriors. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

Many animals even now spring out of the soil, Coalescing from the rains and the heat of the sun. Small wonder, then, if more and bigger creatures, Full-formed, arose from the new young earth and sky. The breed, for instance, of the dappled birds Shucked off their eggshells in the springtime, as Crickets in summer will slip their slight cocoons All by themselves, and search for food and life. Earth gave you, then, the first of mortal kinds, For all the fields were soaked with warmth and moisture. ~ Lucretius

It's interesting to observe the fascination children have with fear. Whether it's movies, books, or Halloween, part of them wants to be scared at the same time another part doesn't. It's like being tickled. There's delight in fright. Perhaps it's their way of learning about fear, of gradually coming to know the difference between what's real and imagined. It's a knack that takes continual practice. But as we mature, society convinces us that fear is a weakness, and we stop exploring it. Sure, we may still go to horror movies and read Stephen King novels, but we no longer engage fear like we used to. And as a result, we lose our perspective. Instead of flinching when someone says, "Boo!" we slide further into our cocoons. ~ Joe Kita

Never live in the past; were it good to do so, butterflies would crawl back into their cocoons. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I hate the road so much. I almost go into a cocoon with my own people out there. ~ Dan Fogelberg

I believe the painful nights that close in on all of us in some form are the cocoons from which we might shed our weaknesses. I believe pain tells us something critical about ourselves and life: that developing strength and empathy and bravery is more essential than our personal comfort. And when I think of it like that, I'm more willing to accept suffering on its terms. ~ Andy Blowers, This I Believe II

Painfully delicate and surprisingly strong, silk resembles love. I told Shams how the silkworms destroy the silk they produce as they emerge from their cocoons. This is why the farmers have to make a choice between the silk and the silkworm. More often than not, they kill the silkworm while it is inside the cocoon in order to pull the silk out intact. It takes the lives of hundreds of silkworms to produce one silk scarf. … But eventually, for the silk to survive, the silkworm had to die. ~ Elif Shafak

Men today were half-made, and women were half-made. Creatures that existed and functioned with certain regularity, but which ran off into a hopeless jumble of inconsequence.
Half-made, like insects that can run fast and be so busy and suddenly grow wings, but which are only winged grubs after all. A world of half-made creatures on two legs, eating food and degrading the one mystery left to them, sex. Spinning a great lot of words, burying themselves inside the cocoons of words and ideas that they spin round themselves, and inside the cocoons, mostly perishing inert and overwhelmed. ~ D.H. Lawrence

I'm lucky to have a great support system in my friends and some of my family. If you have those people that you trust, go ahead and fall back into them and let them be your hammock and cocoon and let them embrace you. ~ Jojo

If you want to find the trail, if you want to find yourself, you must explore your dreams alone. You must grow at a slow pace in a dark cocoon of loneliness so you can fly like wind, like wings, when you awaken. ~ Francesca Lia Block

If you see a bird "feeding" on a cattail spike, observe closely: Is it delving for caterpillars or their cocoons? Or is it depositing or retrieving a food cache? ~ John Eastman

In your cocoon, occasionally you shout complaints, such as, "Leave me alone!" "Bug off!" "I want to be who I am!" ... which comes from fighting against your environment ... You can raise your head and just take a little peek out of the cocoon ... The environment is friendly. It is called "Planet Earth. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

From cane reeds, sugar. From a worm's cocoon, silk. Be patient if you can, and from sour grapes will come something sweet. ~ Rumi

I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfilment ... ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

When You Return

Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark's lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider's belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart. ~ Ellen Bass

Man may be considered as a superior species of animal that produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives. ~ Hippolyte Taine

The worldviews of many in our society exist in protected cocoons. These individuals have never had to make an adjustment from home life to public life, as their public lives and institutions they have encountered merely reflect a "reality" these individuals have been schooled in since birth. ~ Lisa Delpit

It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and - without even knowing it - we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego. ~ Pema Chodron

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills. ~ Mary Schmich

The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in a cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of habits and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

When we are afraid of ourselves and afraid of the seeming threat the world presents, then we become extremely selfish. We want to build our own little nests, our own cocoons, so that we can live by ourselves in a secure way. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

True transformation occurs only when we can look at ourselves squarely and face our attachments and inner demons, free from the buzz of commercial distraction and false social realities. We have to retreat into our own cocoons and come face-to-face with who we are. We have to turn toward our own inner darkness. For only by abandoning its attachments and facing the darkness does the caterpillar's body begin to spread out and its light, beautiful wings begin to form. ~ Julia Hill

I became the butterfly. I got out of the cocoon, and I flew. ~ Lynn Redgrave