Quotes about Awareness

I had an occasional flash of understanding, but then got selfishly wrapped up again in my own problems and pleasures.

This of all the misery in the world and be thankful that you are not sharing in it.

I am the best and sharpest critic of my own work. I know myself what is and what is not well written. Anyone who doesn't write doesn't know how wonderful it is.

My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, Well, that's pretty much what I thought I'd see, you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. [...] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.

Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware.

Everything slows down when we listen and stop trying to fix the unfixable.

Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

I like to think that Henry James said his classic line, A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost, while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head.

We live stitch by stitch, when we're lucky. If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching. And maybe the stitching is crude, or it is unraveling, but if it were precise, we'd pretend that life was just fine and running like a Swiss watch. This is not helpful if on the inside our understanding is that life is more often a cuckoo clock with rusty gears.

Are you willing to see what you are seeing, and to know what you know?