Quotes About Change

We are middle-aged. This is what happens. All the same nonsense that comes with puberty occurs again during perimenopause—the hormone surges, the moodiness, and the hair appearing where there wasn't hair before. Except instead of filling in under the arms and on nether regions, these coarse follicles of hate are showing up on our freaking faces.

I want to reframe the midlife crisis, making it into the midlife opportunity.

anger creates a sense of power and control in a situation where prior to anger these positive, motivating feelings did not exist. The feelings of control and righteousness that come from anger can motivate you to challenge and change difficult interpersonal and social injustices. [. . .] Anger can provide you with a rest from feelings of vulnerability, and a way of venting tensions and frustrations."189

A handwritten letter is a treat for me now—quaint!—and you couldn't pay me to pick up your phone call. God help you if you leave a voice mail.

When your body becomes accustomed to a chronic state of anxiety, the positive physiological changes that happen after good news can, paradoxically, trigger the sense that something isn't right—simply because you're not used to feeling good.

If you're angry, channel that energy into change. Can you stop China from pumping so many carbon emissions into the atmosphere? Directly? By yourself? Today? No. But you can make a point to buy American products. You can adopt a small portion of highway and orchestrate the cleanup efforts. You can start a recycling program in your office. You can begin to chip away; you can control what you do.

If you're serious about changing your life, you'll find a way. If you're not, you'll find an excuse.

Nobody who ever accomplished anything big or new or worth raising a celebratory fist in the air did it from their comfort zone. They risked ridicule and failure and sometimes even death.

Holding myself to perfectionistic standards, I used to think I had to become lifelong friends with everyone who entered my life. This was exhausting, and I now know it's not true. I believe the old saying that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime." (127)

Intense pain often pushed me to make changes. The pain of the eating disorder pushed me into recovering from eating-disordered behaviors, and then the emotional turmoil I experienced without those behaviors (not knowing how to cope with perfectionism, feelings, and life in general) took me even further, so that I ultimately found serenity.

There are no regrets in life, just lessons.

As we said, consciousness is everything. Even now, acknowledging inequality begs one to do something about it--and that is a daunting, albeit righteous, responsibility.

If you wait until you are perfect and free of conflicts, you will never change anything in the world.

You can change everything about your external environment in search of a good life. You can move to a different city, change your job, and even dress more professionally. But if you don't change the way you think and your fundamental view of the world, the chances of you maintaining a well-lived life for long are slim.

The change you seek isn't out there somewhere in space. The change comes from within you. When you bring a deliberate awareness to your daily tasks – especially the most mundane of them – you've changed the whole complexion of your day. In fact, you've transformed the essence of your very being.

Intolerable wrongs we accept now as a matter of course would have provoked marches in the streets and calls for new elections only a few years ago.

Arvid says, "Darling, you must never become accustomed to the extraordinary and outrageous. If you do, little by little, you'll learn to accept anything.

Swiftly, inexplicably, willingly, the people of Germany had voted themselves out of a democratic republic and into a dictatorship.

But are we not both made for this very thing? If you pluck an apple from a tree, is the tree ruined? If you use a new pen, is it ruined, or is it finally fulfilling the purpose for which it was created?

You can leave but you can always come back. You can live here again. Life can be a circle, not just a line.

I don't believe in God. But I do believe that each of us has some sort of inner dynamic, that we are not always aware of, that guides us in life to witness certain profound things. These profound things change us forever and bring us closer to our ultimate selves. My relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat and the death of Michael Stewart were experiences of this nature.

You can't get your arms to stop making circles in the air if you never say good-bye.

and was struck by the next image I saw. Francesca's arm held the door open for Mike, whose bare arms were strapped around a dusty taped box with my name scribbled on it. My past giving way to my future, which embraced my past. Mike

He interrupted. "No, Lisa, other families do not have sons who are Girl Scouts. I'm teaching that boy to fight," Jason muttered to himself, "A gay, black Girl Scout. What the hell happened to this family? We were normal back in San Francisco.