Quotes from Byron Katie

The receiving is the giving. It's the most genuine thing you can give back. That's what they wanted to give you in the first place.

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it—it's just easier if you do.

When you realize that every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom, life becomes very kind.

Self-realization is the sweetest thing. It shows us how we are fully responsible for ourselves, and that is where we find our freedom.

That's what inquiry is for, to break through stressful mythology. These

There's no reason to believe that thoughts match reality. As you move through life, thoughts appear like shots in the dark. They are no more than vague attempts to figure out what's going on around and inside you. When you're seeking love and approval, many thoughts are aimed at deciphering the behavior of the people you care about, or theorizing about what's going on in their minds.

Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.

Romantic love is the story of how you need another person to complete you. It's an absolutely insane story. My experience is that I need no one to complete me. As soon as I realize that, everyone completes me.

The Work is merely four questions; it's not even a thing. It has no motive, no strings. It's nothing without your answers. These four questions will join any program you've got and enhance it. Any religion you have—they'll enhance it. If you have no religion, they will bring you joy. And they'll burn up anything that isn't true for you. They'll burn through to the reality that has always been waiting.

Dying is everything they were looking for in life.

When I listened within myself I saw that the world is what it is – nothing more, nothing less. Where reality is concerned, there is no "what should be." There is only what is, just the way it is, right now. The truth is prior to every story. And every story, prior to investigation, prevents us from seeing what's true.

This is true freedom: a mind that is no longer deceived by itself. Ruth:

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.

Reality is always kinder than the stories we tell about it.

Katie: We live; we die. Always right on time, not one moment sooner or later than

Peace and joy naturally, inevitably, and irreversibly make their way into every corner of your mind, into every relationship and experience. The process is so subtle that you may not even have any conscious awareness of it. You may only know that you used to hurt and now you don't.

Seeking comfort, you give yourself discomfort.

If your happiness depends on your children being happy, that makes them your hostages. So stay out of their business, stop using them for your happiness, and be your own happiness. And that way you are the teacher for your children: someone who knows how to live a happy life.

We're all five-year-olds. We don't know how to do this thing called life. We're just learning how.

I already please everyone, and I already have everyone's approval, though I don't expect them to realize it yet.

Every time you try to change someone, you are trying to change someone that doesn't exist. They only exist in your head. People are who you believe them to be.

A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It's not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it's true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we've been attaching to, often for years.

If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We're both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. I am separate from myself, wondering why my life doesn't work.

The irony is that the struggle to win love and approval makes it very difficult to experience them. Chronic