Growing Your Mind Quotes

You don't have to apologize for growing and learning and changing your mind. ~ Tori Amos

As his mind continues to drift away from his body, he had one final realization. The world itself was alive, too. It swirled around you and sped past your eyes and ears, so fast you could never see it, but slow at the same time, like a tree growing taller in a park. And all the sounds you hears-the wind whipping past your ears and the ocean's whispering and the tickle of the whitecaps against your boat-that was earth's blood pumping through imperceptible veins, and some of those veins were nothing more than people like Shy or Carmen, or Addie. ~ Matt De La Pena

Good Things Happen to Big-Thinking People A tourist walked down a pier and watched a fisherman pull in a large fish, measure it, and throw it back. He caught a second fish, smaller this time, he measured it, and put it in his basket. Oddly, all fish over 10 inches, he discarded. The smaller ones, he kept. Someone asked him, "why?" The fisherman said, "Because my frying pan only measures 10 inches." Is that foolish? Of course it is, but it's no more so than when we throw away the biggest ideas and most beautiful dreams that come into your mind simply because your experience is too limited. Start growing now. Start thinking. Big things happen to big-thinking people. You can become the team you want to be. It's possible. Every man must make his contribution. ~ Peter G. Tormey

Are you attempting to distract me from my task with your wanton thoughts?" There was a curling caress in Gabriel's voice, brushing at the walls of her mind, flooding her body with heat and excitement.
"Wanton thoughts? You need a checkup, my boy. Your fantasy world seems to be growing larger with each passing day. I wanted you home to take out the trash. ~ Christine Feehan

Maybe that is what growing up was all about. It was about changing your mind. Opening it right up. Admitting to yourself that you were wrong about stuff. ~ Matt Haig

There should be a word for that brief period just after waking when the mind is full of warm pink nothing. You lie there entirely empty of thought, except for a growing suspicion that heading towards you, like a sockful of damp sand in a nocturnal alleyway, are all the recollections you'd really rather do without, and which amount to the fact that the only mitigating factor in your horrible future is the certainty that it will be quite short. ~ Terry Pratchett

Touching her fingers, touching skin to skin. Her mouth, her breath, the shape of her flushed face. A tender hand on a naked waist, exploring the new feelings. The inner-soul scent of her hair, burying your mind in it. Inside of me, always inside of me. Memorizing the feelings and perfumes. Something one can keep. Carmen thought, Trust… Something growing. Something true. Something reaching out. ~ Cassandra Barnes

Sit down and write it down with a pen and then make up your mind you are going to do it. Don't spend any time thinking of why you can't. The fun is not in getting it, the fun is in growing. Goals are to help us grow, goals are to help us get. The getting is a site benefit; the growth is the real benefit. ~ Bob Proctor

Oh, stop talking," I cried, in a hunted tone. "I can't bear it. If you are going to arrest me, get it over."

"I'd rather NOT arrest you, if we can find a way out. You look so young, so new to Crime! Even your excuse for being here is so naive, that I - won't you tell me why you wrote a love letter, if you are not in love? And whom you sent it to? That's important, you see, as it bears on the case. I intend," he said, "to be judgdicial[sic], unimpassioned, and quite fair."

"I wrote a love letter" I explained, feeling rather cheered, "but it was not intended for any one, Do you see? It was just a love letter."

"Oh," he said. "Of course. It is often done. And after that?"

"Well, it had to go somewhere. At least I felt that way about it. So I made up a name from some malted milk tablets - - "

"Malted milk tablets!" he said, looking bewildered.

"Just as I was thinking up a name to send it to," I explained, "Hannah - that's mother's maid, you know - brought in some hot milk and some malted milk tablets, and I took the name from them."

"Look here," he said, "I'm unpredjudiced and quite calm, but isn't the `mother's maid' rather piling it on?"

"Hannah is mother's maid, and she brought in the milk and the tablets, I should think," I said, growing sarcastic, "that so far it is clear to the dullest mind."

"Go on," he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "You named the letter ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Just find your way, like a river settling into its bed, and the sigh of the wind over a lake, light but restful ... content with the joy in the arc of an arm throwing a ball for a dog to fetch, the ease of the grassy slope stretching away, birds in the trees singing sweet high notes, flowers growing close in the ditch. ~ Jay Woodman

I don't know what to do with you," he said, his voice growing curt with anger again. "Deceitful little minx. I'm of half a mind to put you to work, milking the goats. But that's out of the question with these hands, now isn't it?" He curled and uncurled her fingers a few times, testing the bandage. "I'll tell Stubb to change this twice a day. Can't risk the wound going septic. And don't use your hands for a few days, at least."
"Don't use my hands? I suppose you're going to spoon-feed me, then? Dress me? Bathe me?"
He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "Don't use your hands much." His eyes snapped open. "None of that sketching, for instance."
She jerked her hands out of his grip. "You could slice off my hands and toss them to the sharks, and I wouldn't stop sketching. I'd hold the pencil with my teeth if I had to. I'm an artist."
"Really. I thought you were a governess."
"Well, yes. I'm that, too."
He packed up the medical kit, jamming items back in the box with barely controlled fury. "Then start behaving like one. A governess knows her place. Speaks when spoken to. Stays out of the damn way."
Rising to his feet, he opened the drawer and threw the box back in. "From this point forward, you're not to touch a sail, a pin, a rope, or so much as a damned splinter on this vessel. You're not to speak to crewmen when they're on watch. You're forbidden to wander past the foremast, and you need to steer clear of the helm, as well."
"So that le ~ Tessa Dare

Ali. You're a great guy," I attempt to reason. "You're good-looking, sorted. A cool job, a great house. I know you have some regrets with your wife. But, you'll find a good man soon, someone who loves you. I know it." Someone who deserves to be with Ali. Jaysus. I sound like a bloody agony aunt albeit not a very eloquent one. He struggles to smile. "Is that your way of letting me down gently?" Fuck, the stupid fuck. "No, I don't get to let you down. You understand? You book me, I'll come, but I am not what you want long term." I don't even mind losing a client. I have enough regulars now. It bothers me to think I won't get to spend time with him every week but what the fuck is someone like Ali doing with me? We finish our drinks in silence, an awkwardness growing between us. He gets the bill. When we are in the car, he gives me two hundred pounds. "I think I'll drive you home." His voice is low and uncertain. Fine. I direct him to a few doors down from my bedsit near the Arsenal football ground in North London. I am not prepared to reveal where I live, not even to Ali. He kisses me softly on the lips. With unshed tears in his eyes once again, he gazes at me, and touches my hair. "Thank you for everything, Liam. Goodbye ~ A. Zukowski

We are two travelers, Roger and I. Roger's my dog-come here, you scamp! Jump for the gentleman-mind your eye! Over the table,-look out for the lamp! The rogue is growing a little old; Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, And slept out-doors when nights were cold, And ate and drank and starved together. ~ John Townsend Trowbridge

Growing up closes so many doors. The modern world doesn't allow for miracles, so we don't see them. It's a very precious gift, an open mind, but it's not passive. You've got to nurture it like a bed of roses; otherwise it will wither and die. Make sure you don't close off your mind to things you find strange. Sometimes they may be the only truth. ~ Tim Lebbon

And let's face it people, no one is ever honest with you about child birth. Not even your mother. "It's a pain you forget all about once you have that sweet little baby in your arms." Bullshit. I CALL BULLSHIT. Any friend, cousin, or nosey-ass stranger in the grocery store that tells you it's not that bad is a lying sack of shit. Your vagina is roughly the size of the girth of a penis. It has to stretch and open andturn into a giant bat cave so the life-sucking human you've been growing for nine months can angrily claw its way out. Who in their right mind would do that willingly? You're just walking along one day and think to yourself, "You know, I think it's time I turn my vagina into an Arby's Beef and Cheddar (minus the cheddar) and saddle myself down for a minimum of eighteen years to someone who will suck the soul and the will to live right out of my body so I'm a shell of the person I used to be and can't get laid even if I pay for it. ~ Tara Sivec

There was something growing in me. Something far more than the festering hate that had begun too many years ago. This girl that sits obediently in the bath, awaiting her master's return was just an image, a picture in a book with no accompanying explanation. She sits in silence, she answers his questions and she succumbs his touches without complaint. But in the dark recesses of her mind something continues to thrive. Like a switch flipped it had changed her from the pathetic, frightened girl into a soulless demon playing a sickening game. Dragging him in with her acquiesce until she could chew him up and spit him out. ~ Roxanne Lee

The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone. But alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. It costs to do this. If you succeed somewhat you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it all your life. ~ Robert Henri

This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I'm not going to bother you with any of the details--and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer's shoulders by the subordinate's unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncom ~ Neal Stephenson

We always make the best decision we can based upon what we believe in that moment. When I was growing up, my father and I experienced a lot of tension with each other for many years. He had bipolar disorder and it was very difficult for him. As I got older and went through my transformation of consciousness and really forgave him - and forgave myself and forgave the world - my father started showing up in my awareness as an angel. He got happier and happier and our relationship began to improve. People would say, "Your dad
has really changed a lot," and I would say, "My mind has really changed." My father was just reflecting that back. In fact, he came to me one day and said, "David, I'm sorry. I was not a very good father. I didn't do the things that a good father should do."
I replied, "Nonsense! I don't believe that for one instant. You did the best you could and I did the best I could. You didn't let me down and I didn't let you down. We're not going to buy into that guilt trip anymore."
He lit up when I said this. His whole demeanor changed and he instantly reflected love back to me. That simple exchange completely rearranged our view of everything that had taken place during those early years. None of it mattered anymore. We had been mistaken about many things because we couldn't perceive truly while we were going through our time together. ~ David Hoffmeister

When you hear the phrase "rescue the financial system," translate it in your mind into "keep the debts on the books." They are trying to find a way for you (and debtor nations too) to keep paying and for the debt to keep growing. ~ Charles Eisenstein

A gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds. They're spidery and frail, their hair as fine as mist. Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me. Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.
There are five of them now, white headed old things huddled together and pointing crooked fingers at the glass. ~ Sara Gruen

Walk

Million miles away
Your signal in the distance
To whom it may concern

I think I lost my way
Gettin good at starting over
Every time that I return

Learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin

Learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough
Where do I begin

Do you remember the days
We built these paper mountains
And sat and watched them burn

I think I found my place
Can't you feel it growing stronger
Little conquerors

Learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?

Learning to talk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?

Now
For the very first time
Don't you pay no mind
Set me free, again
You keep alive a moment at a time
But still inside a whisper to a liar
To sacrifice but knowing to survive
The first to find another state of mind
I'm on my knees, I'm praying for a sign
Forever, whenever

I never wanna die
I never wanna die
I never wanna die
I'm on my knees
I never wanna die

I'm Dancing on my grave
I'm Running through the fire
Forever, whenever
I Never wanna die
I Never wanna leave
I'll Never say goodbye

Forever, whenever
Forever, whenever

Learning to walk again
I belie ~ Foo Fighters

Have a humble heart & an open-mind and you'll soon be given glimpses beyond the veil of your beliefs and understandings... growing wiser, and believing deeper. ~ Russell Kyle

You learn to forgive (the South) for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because the spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once. ~ Amanda Kyle Williams

Energy is a science-y term that psychics like to use a lot, though I'm not sure many of us would say we missed our calling as professors or technology gurus. I've met my share of mediums, and I've never heard any of them confide, "Gosh, I really wanted to be a physicist, but I knew talking to dead people would make me more popular at parties." Are you out of your mind? If you handed me a radiometer, I'd probably use it as a paperweight. Even when the kids needed help with their science fair projects growing up, it was a group effort at our house - me, Larry, my parents, we'd all pitch in. And believe me when I say that I was rarely the one steering the rocket ship. ~ Theresa Caputo

Do not develop a habit of associating with people who are materially minded and involved in worldly affairs. Live alone, or else with brethren who are detached from material things and of one mind with yourself. For if one associates with materially minded people involved in worldly affairs, one will certainly be affected by their way of life and will be subject to social pressures, to vain talk and every other kind of evil: anger, sorrow, passion for material things, fear of scandals. Do not get caught up in concern for your parents or affection for your relatives; on the contrary, avoid meeting them frequently, in case they rob you of the stillness you have in your cell and involve you in their own affairs. 'Let the dead bury their dead,' says the Lord; 'but come, follow me' (cf. Matt. 8:22). If you find yourself growing strongly attached to your cell, leave it, do not cling to it, be ruthless. Do everything possible to attain stillness and freedom from distraction, and struggle to live according to God's will, battling against invisible enemies. If you cannot attain stillness where you now live, consider living in exile, and try and make up your mind to go. Be like an astute business man: make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.

Indeed, I urge you to welcome exile. It frees you from all the entanglements of your own locality, and allows you to enjoy the blessings of stillness undistracted. Do no ~ Evagrius Ponticus

I started a modeling agency and I had it for about five and a half years and it was the same time I was actually working with the WWE and doing SmackDown. It was really the same principles; because me growing up I didn't have the support, I wasn't told, yes you can do that; you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it. ~ Amy Weber

For your sake poets sequester themselves,
gather images to churn the mind,
journey forth, ripening with metaphor,
and all their lives they are so alone...

And painters paint their pictures only
that the world, so transient as you made it,
can be given back to you,
to last forever.

All becomes eternal. See: In the Mona Lisa
some woman has long since ripened like wine,
and the enduring feminine is held there
through all the ages.

Those who create are like you.
They long for the eternal.
They say, Stone, be forever!
And that means: be yours.

And lovers also gather your inheritance.
They are the poets of one brief hour.
They kiss an expressionless mouth into a smile
as if creating it anew, more beautiful.

Awakening desire, they make a place
where pain can enter;
that's how growing happens.
They bring suffering along with their laughter,
and longings that had slept and now awaken
to weep in a stranger's arms. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

People always ask if Burke and Caelum are brothers because they're both so tall, and neither Michael seems bothered by the question, but it drives me out of my mind because besides the height they look nothing alike. Burke's got blond hair and freckles. Caelum has a mass of dark pubic hair growing out of his head. Plus, how the hell could they be brothers when they have the same first name? That only works if your last one is Foreman. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

How does one know you've "made it"?
You no longer feel like you have anything to prove to anyone. You have no regrets or resentments from the past, anger that you're working from. No people you want revenge on or songs you want to sing in order to finally speak your mind.
Instead, you work from a place of wanting to do the work only, without any attachment to the outcome. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I'm a believer in hard work and being focussed. I figure that if
I can do it, anyone can! Seriously, just put your mind to things,
have faith, patience, trust and good things will happen.
There's an endless road of things I can't do… There's
an endless amount of growing and learning, and there's always
more. Don't forget it. The day you stop learning is the day you
start sucking. My days are numbered. I'm just trying to get as
far down the road as I can. ~ Ron Thal

Until you see how the person you've invested in is or isn't growing, you really don't know if you've gotten through. Until you see the fruit of your discipling in reproduction, you're not sure you've finished your work. From the beginning, reproduction was always on Jesus' mind. He isn't just looking to the next generation, but also to the generation beyond that generation and the generation beyond that one. He's looking always to the fulfillment of His plan to reach the world. ~ Anonymous

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much. ~ Malcolm Cowley

I love him. Have loved him through each of his growing stages. But I do not want him to stay the same. I want him to grow. To mature. To become everything God has in mind for him. To be a man. Accept responsibility. Be a leader ... And he will. I have every confidence he will. He's on the right track-your brother. Following the leading of his Lord. I want him to change, but I never want him to leave behind the solid base he has already established for who he is deep inside. But I also want him to build and develop and carefully nurture that inner self. And as that happens, there will be changes. ~ Janette Oke

Great growth comes from loneliness. You have time to develop, dwell in your own mind and go a bit mad. All the great people are a bit mad. That's good to remember. Don't escape it.

Great growth comes from time spent in foreign lands, watching foreign people with foreign cultures. It makes you forget about your own land and race and town for a while. Great growth also comes from rooting yourself into one place from time to time. Unpack your bags, get a nice bed, a bookshelf, some friends. Learn to show up, keep in touch, stick around.

Growth comes in all sorts of forms and shapes, everywhere at all times, and it's yours to take and consume. Do what ought to be done. Here and now, to get you somewhere - anywhere. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

If you are a meditator, as your meditation goes on becoming more and more luminous, your intelligence will be growing to the last breath of your life. Not only that, even after the last breath your intelligence will continue to grow - because you are not going to die, only your body will be dying. And the body has nothing to do with intelligence, mind has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is the quality of your awareness - more aware, more intelligent. And if you are totally aware, you are as intelligent as this whole existence is. ~ Rajneesh

Greg accepted this with some incredulity, then his eyes widened at the ramifications of what she was saying. "Then, I'm your birthday gift?"
She nodded slowly, then tilted her head, and said, "That's an odd smile. What are you thinking?"
Greg was thinking he was the luckiest son of a bitch alive as his mind automatically readjusted his earlier imaginings of a large, ugly woman stripping and climbing on top of him, to this woman doing so. He allowed himself to enjoy the fantasy for a moment, but then realized that his body was enjoying it way too much, a noticeable bulge was growing in his pants. He gave his head a shake.

-Gregg & Lissianna ~ Lynsay Sands

With so many book projects filling mind and heart, it feels similar to pregnancy. Your own books are like your children - you have to give birth to them, raise them, and do your best to make sure they live happily. You know, you just HAVE TO put into writing all of those thoughts, words and ideas appearing and growing in your head. Otherwise, life will make no sense without it. ~ Sahara Sanders

I do not dream, der Grimnebulin. I am a calculating machine that has calculated how to think. I do not dream. I have no neuroses, no hidden depths. My consciousness is a growing function of my processing power, not the baroque thing that sprouts from your mind, with its hidden rooms in attics and cellars. ~ China Mieville

Don't keep running the race of life with the same heavy load of mistakes and indecisiveness! You may grow weary and weary! Mistakes lead to discovery, but not all the time! Mind your mind, and for a moment, realize where you have reach, and drop your loads! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If you could once make up your mind never to undertake more work ... than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry ... and if the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and ... out of breath, you would stop and take a breath, you would find this simple common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish. ~ Elizabeth Prentiss

The pattern of your breathing affects the pattern of your performance. When you are under stress, deep breathing helps bring your mind and body back into the present.Over the years I have handed out thousands of little stickers to athletes that read 'Breathe and Focus.' A baseball player will place the bright orange circle on the shoulder of his uniform or underneath the bill of his cap, or on the barrel of his bat. A hockey player might affix it to his stick. Firefighters I have worked with place the stickers on their self-contained breathing apparatus. The stickers serve as a reminder. Whenever they feel themselves growing anxious, breathe in energy. Breathe out negativity. Breathe in relaxation. Breathe out stress. ~ Gary Mack

Sometimes I felt that growing up and being a girl was about learning to be afraid. Not paranoid, exactly, but always alert and aware, like checking out the exits in the movie theatre or the fire escape in a hotel. You came to know, in a way you hadn't as a kid, that the body you inhabited was vulnerable, imperfectly fortified. On TV, in the papers, in books and movies, it isn't ever men being raped or kidnapped or bludgeoned or dismembered or burned with acid. But in stories and crime shows and TV series and movies and in life too, it's going on all the time, all around you. So you learn, in your mind, that your body needs to be protected. It's both precious and totally dispensable, depending on whom you encounter. ~ Claire Messud

I was thinking, The last thing I want to do is get in a wreck and lose another limb. I completely lost it and blew up at my father.
"Why did you do that? I can't get injured again! Pull over. I'll drive!" I screamed.
Dad is not the kind of person who would have ever taken that kind of behavior from me in the past, but I think he understood the paranoia. I'd asked him while I was in the hospital, "Did you ever think one of your kids would ever lose a limb?"
And he said, "No, it never crossed my mind. I was always more afraid I would lost another limb."
It wasn't until later that I realized how great it was of him that he kept his cool and understood where I was coming from. He just let me freak out and let me drive. I think in some ways it was the same kind of lesson he taught me as a child without ever saying a word. I watched him just get on with things with one arm. He never made a fuss about it. It was an example that growing up I didn't know I'd need eventually.
So I got in the driver's seat and we continued on our way. After a while we stopped at a gas station to stretch our legs and get some snacks. I grabbed a lemon-line Gatorade and Dad grabbed something to drink and we got back in the car. I turned the car on, so the air and the radio were going as I tried and tried to get my Gatorade bottle open, but the top was too big and I couldn't quite get my fingers to grab it, hold it, and twist it open. My finger strength just wasn't there yet. So I ~ Noah Galloway

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love proved in the letting go. ~ Cecil Day-Lewis

You must direct your full, intense concentration on the heart. You must feel that you are not the mind. You have to feel that you are growing into the heart. You are only the heart and nothing else. ~ Sri Chinmoy

The earth offers gift after gift - life and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiveness. My god, the forgiveness, time, and the scouring tides. How does one accept gifts as great as these and hold them in the mind?

Failing to notice a gift dishonors it, and deflects the love of the giver. That's what's wrong with living a careless life, storing up sorrow, waking up regretful, walking unaware. But to turn the gift in your hand, to say, this is wonderful and beautiful, this is a great gift - this honors the gift and the giver of it. Maybe this is what [my friend] Hank has been trying to make me understand: Notice the gift. Be astonished at it. Be glad for it, care about it. Keep it in mind. This is the greatest gift a person can give in return.

'This is your work,' my friend told me, 'which is a work of substance and prayer and mad attentiveness, which is the real deal, which is why we are here. ~ Kathleen Dean Moore

I've been fighting to defend who I am all my life. I'm tired. I just don't know how to go on anymore. This is the only way I can think of I can still be me and survive. I just don't know any other way".
Theresa sat back in her chair. "I'm a woman, Jess. I love you because you're a woman, too. I made up my mind when I was growing up that I was not going to betray my desire by resigning to marrying a dirt farmer or the boy at the service station. Do you understand?"
I shook my head sadly. "Do you wish I wasn't a butch?"
She smiled. "No, I love your butchness. I just don't want to be some man's wife, even if that man's a woman. ~ Leslie Feinberg

When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow. ~ Vera Nazarian

The work of each individual contributes to a totality, and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives - past and present and to come - forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole? Daneel, keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is growing up different. It is extreme hypersensitivity. It is a bottomless pit of feeling you're failing, but three days later, you feel you can do anything, only to end the week where you began. It is not learning from your mistakes. It is distrusting people because you have been hurt enough. It is moments of knowing your pain is self inflicted, followed by blaming the world. It is wanting to listen, but you just can't anymore because your life has been to full of people that have judged you. It is fighting to be right; so for once in your life someone will respect and hear you for a change. It is a tiring life of endless games with people, in order to seek stimulus. It is a hyper focus, so intense about what bothers you, that you can't pay attention to anything else, for very long. It is a never-ending routine of forgetting things. It is a boredom and lack of contentment that keeps you running into the arms of anyone that has enough patience to stick around. It wears you out. It wears everyone out. It makes you question God's plan. You misinterpret everything, and you allow your creative mind to fill the gaps with the same old chains that bind you. It narrows your vision of who you let into your life. It is speaking and acting without thinking. It is disconnecting from the ones you love because your mind has taken you back to what you can't let go of. It is risk taking, thrill seeking and moodiness that never ends. You hang your hope on "signs" and abandon reason for re ~ Shannon L. Alder

The mind is incredible. Once you've gained mastery over it, channeling its powers positively for your purposes, you can do anything. I mean anything. The secret is to make your mind work for you not against you. This means constantly being positive. Constantly setting up challenges you can meet either today, next week, or next month. "I can't ... " should be permanently stricken from your vocabulary, especially the vocabulary of your thoughts. You must see yourself always growing and improving. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

It's just my creepy science mind at work. I was thinking how bizarre it is that a parasite is growing in you and will eventually explode from your body through an extremely narrow opening, and yet you will both survive. ~ Erin McCarthy

Ian Fleming

The CBC Interview, 1953

He doesn't use Anglo-Saxon four-letter words, "I don't like seeing them on the page."

When asked why his novels are so popular in light of the dirtiness of the trade (of espionage), Fleming said, "The books have pace and plenty of action. And espionage is not regarded by the majority of the public as a dirty trade. They regard it as a rather sort of ah, ah very romantic affair… Spying has always been regarded as (a) very romantic one-man job, so-to-speak. A one man against a whole police force or an army."

Regarding heroes of his time, Fleming said, "I think that although they may have feet of clay, ah, we probably all have, and all human beings have, there's no point in dwelling entirely on the feet. There are many other parts of the animal to be examined. And I think people like to read about heroes."

BBC Interview on Desert Island Discs

Question: Had the character of James Bond been growing in your mind for a long time?
Ian Fleming's response: "No, I can't say I had, really. He sort of, ah, developed when I was just on the edge of getting married, after having been a bachelor for so long, and I really wanted to take my mind off the agony. And so I decided to sit down and write a book."

Question: How much long do you think you can keep Bond going?
Ian Fleming's response: "Well, I don't know. It depends on how much I, how much more I can go on following ~ Ian Fleming

Growing a pair is a state of mind, an attitude, and a way of thinking. It's about giving up being a victim and taking control of your life at every level. It is the willingness to do the right thing even when everyone else is doing the wrong thing. ~ Larry Winget

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then -the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men. ~ John Steinbeck

Who can tell?
Your living is an organized hell.
The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell.
The pressure, everything is done to a measure.
In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure.
Like a feather falling slow spiraling to the floor.
Strung up like a broken violin to your course.
Opportunity is knocking at your door,
But you never left a welcome mat (It doesn't matter anymore.).
Or anyhow, but you're too late to turn back.
Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack.
Ain't no comebacks in this game of life.
Roll the dice again,
Roll it once, never twice.

Keep on going, and taste the stars.
Keep on growing, and raise the bar.
You're living life for the As down to the Zs,
After one drop you got a fountain to seize.

Wanna break from the world, but the world wanna break you,
The weight makes your backbone curl up and make you. ~ Tablo

Internalizing problem-solving techniques enhances the neural activity that allows you to more easily hear the whispers of your growing intuition. When you know - really know - how to solve a problem just by looking at it, you've created a commanding chunk that sweeps like a song through your mind. ~ Barbara Oakley

Mindfulness as a practice provides endless opportunities to cultivate greater intimacy with your own mind and to tap into and develop your deep interior resources for learning, growing, healing, and potentially for transforming your understanding of who you are and how you might live more wisely and with greater well-being, meaning, and happiness in this world. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn