Quotes from Rosamund Stone Zander

The drive to be successful and the fear of failure are, like the head and tail of a coin, inseparably linked.

They goaded me on to unusual efforts and caused me, and those around me, considerable suffering. Of course, the surprising thing was that my increasing success did little to lessen the tension.

The WE appears when, for the moment, we set aside the story of fear, competition, and struggle, and tell its story.

Why does it spiral downward, why do things tend to look more and more hopeless? For the same reason that red Dodge pickups seem to proliferate on the highways as soon as you buy one and that pregnant women appear out of nowhere approximately eight months before your baby is due. The more attention you shine on a particular subject, the more evidence of it will grow. Attention is like light and air and water. Shine attention on obstacles and problems and they multiply lavishly.

The practice of the way things are is a reality check on the runaway imagination of the calculating self. It's like the world-weary policeman saying, "Just the facts, Ma'am, just the facts." Radiating possibility begins with things as they are and highlights open spaces, the pathways leading out from here.

In the pursuit of objectives under a vision, playing is relevant to the manifestation of the possibility, winning is not.

BEING WITH the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what is, not from what should be; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fears, and imaginings, and—without fleeing, blaming, or attempting correction—we learn to soar, like the far-seeing hawk, over the whole landscape. The practice of being with the way things are allows us to alight in a place of openness, where "the truth" readies us for the next step, and the sky opens up.

If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility? —SØREN KIERKEGAARD, Either/Or

In the same way NASA uses mathematics and machinery, we musicians must use sound. Sound can explore the soul, coax out dreams and possibilities that before were lost in inky blackness. A beautiful sonata escapes gravity. We are not very different, you and I. Our minute individual persons are small, but our life-journeys can span galaxies. NASA is granted billions of dollars and, for the insistence of possibility it bestows on the world, it is worth every penny. Amanda Burr, age 16

There is no such thing as bad weather," he used to say, "only inappropriate clothing.

This student, in a brilliant flash, had hit upon the "secret of life." He had realized that the labels he had been taking so seriously are human inventions—it's all a game. The Number 68 is invented and the A is invented, so we might as well choose to invent something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us.

Whenever somebody gives up their pride to reveal a truth to others," I told him, "we find it incredibly moving; in fact, we are all so moved that even the cameraman is crying." I hadn't actually looked in the direction of

Rule Number 6 is 'Don't take yourself so g—damn seriously.'" "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?" "There aren't any.

Humor can bring us together around our inescapable foibles, confusions, and miscommunications, and especially over the ways in which we find ourselves acting entitled and demanding, or putting other people down, or flying at each other's throats.

THE LIFE FORCE for humankind is, perhaps, nothing more or less than the passionate energy to connect, express, and communicate. Enrollment is that life force at work, lighting sparks from person to person, scattering light in all directions. Sometimes the sparks ignite a blaze; sometimes they pass quietly, magically, almost imperceptibly, from one to another to another.

You are more likely to be successful, overall, if you participate joyfully with projects and goals and do not think your life depends on achieving the mark because then you will be better able to connect to people all around you.

Most would recognize at core that the main purpose of grades is to compare one student against another.

In writing their letters, I say to them, they are to place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report on all the insights they acquired and milestones they attained during the year as if those accomplishments were already in the past.

I understand that trying and achieving are the same thing when you are your own master—and I am.

The lesson I learned is that the player who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group. A cynic, after all, is a passionate person who does not want to be disappointed again.

We can open a window on a world where all is sound, our creative powers are formidable, and unseen threads connect us all.

Leaders who become their vision often seem uncommonly brave to the rest of us.

It is not in the context of measuring people's performance against standards that we propose giving the A, despite the reference to measurement the A implies. We give the A to finesse the stranglehold of judgment that grades have over our consciousness from our earliest days.

The practice of giving the A allows the teacher to line up with her students in their efforts to produce the outcome, rather than lining up with the standards against these students. In the first instance, the instructor and the student, or the manager and the employee, become a team for accomplishing the extraordinary; in the second, the disparity in power between them can become a distraction and an inhibitor, drawing energy away from productivity and development.