"Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts." ~Jim Morrison

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love." ~Rumi

"If you really want love, forget what you know."
~Hi Ho Silver Oh (do yourself a favor and listen to Perjury)

"Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
~Rumi

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance." ~e e cummings (thanks Mom)

"The expectations we create from our past relationships are merely barriers to the heart." ~Philip Eastman

"Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be."
~Cervantes (thanks Mom)

"It's no good wearing an overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked." ~Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

"We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds."

~Warren Buffett

"That information is so new and refreshing. I feel like I just drank a wheelbarrow full of concrete while sitting in a tub of honey." ~the ever brilliant and ever sarcastic Sara Kaye Larson, in reference to an annoying article on "style" in the LA Times

"Never trust a thought that didn't come by walking."

~Friedrich Nietzsche

"Don't part with your illusions.  When they are gone you may still exist, but you will have ceased to live."
~Mark Twain (thanks Phil)

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life." ~Federico Fellini

"Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me 'unrealistic' to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept." ~Satish Kumar

"Jameson on the rocks, ain't no surprise. There are times when I let the sadness of the Irish speak to me through their whiskey."

~me singing to myself after enough of the good stuff

"Pessimism comes from our passions; optimism from the will." ~Alain (thanks for the quote L. Fortunate and yes, it is beautiful)

"Social systems can be changed, the ones we have now are not very old. The trouble is we are driven by fear and so we take panic decisions, like opting for nuclear power. At the moment, our culture is of violence - to nature, animals, people, ourselves. We are not protecting nature these days so much as managing it without knowing it. If you want to protect it, go out in it." ~Satish Kumar

"It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince (thanks Mom)

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel."
~Maya Angelou (thanks Sara)

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." ~Galileo Galilei

"I'm seeking. I'm striving. I'm in it with all my heart."
~Vincent van Gogh

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
~Dalai Lama (thanks Heather)

"no regrets girl. only u know what u need. the path to fabulousness is not paved with sleep. its paved with bricks and marigolds."
~SKL to me, via text, late at night when we both couldn't sleep

"It's easier than you might think."
~a billboard for Vasectomy.com, off I-15 in Las Vegas

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." ~Martin Luther (thanks Regan)

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
~Oscar Wilde (thanks Regan)

“The way that we see things today does not have to be the way we saw them yesterday. That is because the situations, our relationships to them, and we ourselves have changed in the interim. This notion of constant change suggests that we do not have to be discouraged.” ~T.K.V. Desikachar

"We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens." ~T.K.V. Desikachar (thanks Keirin)

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments."
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(thanks Sara, I love you and miss you very much)

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose." ~Tennessee Williams

"You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile." ~C.S. Lewis