Quotes About Growth

He didn't like it all that much when he first came - all the rubbish and the rush - but it was growing on him, it wasn't half bad. Coming to the city was like entering a tunnel, he said, and finding to your surprise that the light at the end didn't matter; sometimes in fact the tunnel made the light tolerable.

I suppose I've always known that it's hard to be just one person. the key is in the door and it can always be opened.

We get our voice from the voices of others. Read promiscuously. Imitate, copy, but become your own voice.

Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I have begun to change myself.

I guess I've always known that it's hard to be just one person. The key is in the door and it can always be opened.

And what is it we give our children anyway, except the ability to not become us?

At Yale, when he was young and headstrong, he'd been sure that one day he'd be the very axis of the world, that his life would be one of deep impact. But every young man thought that. A condition of youth, your own importance. The mark you'd make upon the world. But a man learns sooner or later. You take your little nice and you make it your own.

So you want to be a dancer? I asked. I want to dance better than I already do, he said.

Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but sometimes it's never even there in the first place.

In the end, the only things worth doing are the things that might possibly break your heart.

There was a quote about standing in a river too long or long enough that I can't find now. Anyone remember? If so, what page?

Truth: When criticized you go berserk, but in your defense remember that it is those who calmly listen who never change.

Failure is good. Failure admits ambition. Failure admits bravery. Failure admits daring. It requires courage to fail and even more courage to know that you're going to fail...And in the end there's only one real failure - and that's the failure to be able to fail. Having tried is the true bravery.

One corner to another. One more crack in the pavement. That's the way we all walk: the more we have to occupy our minds the better.

Every time a branch of mine got to being a decent size, that wind just came along and broke it.

a, pour chacun de nous, de certains parallélismes entre notre intelligence, nos moeurs et notre caractère, qui se développent sans discontinuité, et ne se rompent qu'aux grandes perturbations de la vie.

The mind is a garden, said he.

Forgive me for saying so, Your Highness, Clarissa said slowly, but for one as unaccustomed to good deeds as you, perhaps it would be best if you started with one on a smaller scale. Something like, I don't know, spreading bread crumbs for birds? Birds? Valentina stared at Clarissa as if she had sprouted wings and would fly off. Why on earth would I wish to feed birds? It was just a thought, Clarissa murmured.

Maybe these bad things are good things because they build our faith for what is to come.

Just because you're grown up and then some doesn't mean settling into the doldrums of predictability. Surprise people. Surprise yourself. (281)

Middle school is for being like everyone else; middle age is for being like yourself. (430)

Sometimes you'll hear, 'People don't change.' This is true more often than it ought to be, but listen again: 'People don't change.' It says 'don't,' not 'can't.' (316)

Yoga will always be transformational, even when it stops being cool. (350)