Quotes from Clarissa Pinkola Estes

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all.

Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self.

Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows.

The drive toward Life is protective, thoughtful, vulnerable, and invested in immaculate love. It is this last that marks the difference between a wise heart muddy with real life experiences in the trenches and a dry heart that functions on rote concepts alone.

We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.

There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.

If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time.

All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you lie still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time.

Story is far older than the art of science and psychology, and will always be the elder in the equation no matter how much time passes.

Since time out of mind, a considered act of heroism has been the cure for stultifying ambivalence.

No Latina woman would be called 'Ms.' - that's an invention of middle-class Anglo women. Latina women are proud to be called 'Mrs.' That simply means that we have a family.

If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.

Without art we live under the illusion that there is only time, and not eternity.

I know people heal by being able to tell the story - the whole story.

When you feel bad, find a person to talk to and cry with, to tell of your anger and other helpless feelings.

To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his own fear.

Friends who love you and have warmth for your creative life are the very best suns in the world.

Forget: Refuse to dwell; let go and loosen one's hold, particularly on memory. To forget is an active - not passive - endeavor.

Cynicism means the conduit to the soul has a great kink in it, like a garden hose in which nothing flows in either direction.

To Than Shwe, a kingdom in return for the eternal soul is just the right egregious trade-off. Than Shwe is a general who carries the light of unbounded ambition.

Rather than chairs and tables, I preferred the ground, trees, and caves, for in those places I felt I could lean against the cheek of God.

Forgive: Make a conscious decision to cease to harbor resentment, which includes forgiving a debt and giving up one's resolve to retaliate.

You know the best thing about having a house? You get to plant whatever you want in the yard and watch it grow.

Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.