Quotes from Eloise Ristad

When we give ourselves permission to fail..we at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.

When we give ourselves permission to fail..we at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.

The pat on the back becomes more important than the music or the skating. One part of us becomes ever more committed to earning the pat on the back, while another subversive part—that we try to ignore—kicks and screams and resists the teacher's authority. This is the part that gives us all kinds of excuses for not practicing.

Often we mistake knowledge for truth and forget that the sun shines on truth from different directions and casts a different shadow each time. When we look only at high noon, we miss a lot. If we mistake the shadow for truth itself, we delude ourselves. Our understanding must shine from ever-new directions.

Insight is sudden. It is a flash of understanding. It's what we do with our insights that can take a lifetime.

Life has lots of genuine-sounding simulated answers waiting to be snatched up by gullible takers.

As we talked, we realized that we actually improvise everything we do, from the way we walk down the street to the way we prepare a meal. Can you imagine speaking without improvising? Yet the word improvisation terrifies most people, musician and non-musician alike.

We yield our wills and our imaginations to "experts," both visible and invisible, and pretend that only the experts have god-given powers of perception. We forget the legitimacy of our own knowing.

If we allow ourselves to become authorities, we tend to lock ourselves into the corner we label "right," and forget that every corner has its own share of rightness.

Our fingers are frustratingly accurate in using the information we give them. If we imagine sloppily, we play sloppily; if we imagine clearly and precisely, that is how we play.