Quotes from Richard Bach

Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.

The gull sees farthest who flies highest

This is a test to see if your mission in this life is complete, if you are alive, it isn't.

The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, though you may express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write lies, or nonsense, or to tear the pages.

Of course there's destiny, but destiny doesn't push you where you don't want to go. You're the ones who choose. Destiny is up to you.

Heaven is not a place, and it's not a time. Heaven is being perfect.

One way to pick a future is to believe it's inevitable.

You seek problems because you need their gifts.

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.

He spoke of very simple things- that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form. Set aside, came a voice from the multitude, even if it be the Law of the Flock? The only true law is that which leads to freedom, Jonathan said. There is no other.

There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.

if you argue for your limitations they are yours

The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.

It doesn't take time to change once you understand the problem...Somebody hands you a rattlesnake, it doesn't take long to drop it, does it?

Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world -- even if what is published is not true.

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.

To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

Next to 'God', 'love' is the word most mangled in every language.

Get this in mind early: We never grow up.

An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown

Amazing. You were so attached to it, and it still disappeared for you. "Attached! I was whocking that cloud with everything I had! Fireballs, laser beams, vacuum cleaner a block high..." "Negative attachments, Richard. If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production out of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking. That's all there is to it.

Why, Jon, why? his mother asked. Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can't you leave low flying to the pelicans, the alhatross? Why don't you eat? Son, you're bone and feathers! I don't mind being bone and feathers mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can't, that's all. I just want to know.

One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin.

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid.We fear we will not find love,and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we don't have love we will be unhappy.