"Dive in with your eyes closed
For the life you were born to claim
And the water will be paralyzed
By the courage you contain
And the flutter of your earnest heart
It will fill the silent seas"

~ Ryan O'Neal 

"There's a lot more going on in your brain and your body than you can ever be aware of. And yet, most people identify themselves with this little flash-lit area of consciousness."

~ Rae Armantrout 

"Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer."

~ Brad Aaron Modlin

"I do know enough as a psychologist about learning and memory. And I know that we learn. How much of this I need to do in order to change, I cannot say. But I can say that there is a point at which this brain is not just elastic in moving to what is being suggested, but that it may be plastic in that it can be reset into a new mold."

~ Mahzarin Banaji

the strangest things can conjure up the past,
and forgotten time will find its long way back. 

as thin as air, as light as snow
some combination of the unknown,
but it doesn’t matter, i just know i need more.

~ Sleeping at Last
 

i’ll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness.

~ Sleeping At Last

When I talk to people about finding stories in their life, I'm talking about finding things that are almost in their everyday that they can bring great meaning to and connect to audiences or to people around the lunch table.

~ Matthew Dicks

nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
do this regularly for a week

~ W. S. Merwin

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,
most intense when the wind blows through it
and the sound it makes equally strange,
like the sound of the wind in a movie—

Louise Glück

"So much of what we live goes on inside–"

"Dad has had a series of loses that you just don't get over. He lost Mom. He lost his sight. He can't walk. His hearing is going. He's afraid his mind is almost gone...I was so happy Dad had something wonderful this morning."

~ Stephen Tobolowsky

There’s a place in my brain
where hate won’t grow.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

"I don’t like when precious things slip through people’s fingers—especially things that seem defenseless or undercelebrated, like old newspapers, but also unheralded people who may have said sensible things at a certain time in history, but who were completely drowned out by other people. Or minor poets whose lives were instructive."

~ Nicholson Baker

"When I go, I hope someone grabs hold of me. But I have to promise I’m grabbing hold of who's gone before." ~ Dario Robleto

"How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god?" ~ Alan Watts