Quotes About Growth

I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I don't want to tell myself it's over when it's not.

what made you happy once might not make you happy now.

it was possible to grow up in an instant, that you could look down and see the line in the sand dividing your life now from what it used to be.

A girl who is thirteen-which is hard, and difficult, and beautiful, and painful, and exhilarating.

Where you come from does matter -- but not nearly as much as where you are headed.

There's a] point where you have to leave the dough alone. It's silly to anthropomorphize bread, but I love the fact that it needs to sit quietly, to retreat from touch and noise and drama, in order to evolve. I have to admit, I often feel that way myself.

maybe there is more to a person than a body and a mind. maybe something else figures into the mix— not a soul, exactly, but a spirit that hints you might one day be greater, stronger than you are now. a promise; a potential.

Grandmothers in Botswana tell their children that if you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, you must go together.

I was starting to see that what looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.

parenting isn't a noun but a verb--an ongoing process instead of an accomplishment. And that no matter how many years you put into the job, the learning curve is, well, fairly flat.

I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-new house to gather dust. Maybe that was the process more commonly described as bonding: the act of learning your child as well as you know yourself.

Love is not an equation... It is not a contract, and it's not a happy ending. It is the slate under the chalk and the ground buildings rise from and the oxygen in the air.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Søren Kierkegaard

Imagine a world that seemed so much bigger than you. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed.

I think that you can love more than one person in a lifetime. There's the one who teaches you what love is, even if it doesn't last. … And then there's the one who makes you a better human than you were, even as you do the same form him. … And then there's the last one ... The one that you never get enough time with. But who sees you through to the end.

Coal, with time and heat and pressure, will always become a diamond. But if you were freezing to death, which would you consider the gem?

until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one

Then they scrambled through the window and into the darkness, determined to turn themselves into what they were not.

She wondered if this was true of every parent: if, prior to having children, they all used to be someone else.

If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over - only living with the mistakes you've made.

You get through it, you just never get over it

When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start learning in fourth grade, this one you are born with, and eventually lose...Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult...is only a slow sewing it shut.

It turns out that sharing the past with someone is different from reliving it when you're alone. It feels less like a wound, more like a poultice.