Top 427 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Bach - Page 4

You've given up your whole life to be the person you are now. Is it worth it?

Children are not our property, and they are not ours to control any more that we were our parents' property or theirs to control.

Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.

The big thing about writing is three commands: Have fun. Don't think. Don't care.

All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.

nobody means to get carried away in mediocrity, but it happens, it happens unless you think about everything you do, unless you make every choice the best one you know how to make.

It’s not when you start that makes your success in the world, but when you quit.

So this world, I think, and an indefinite number of other worlds of our creation, are also - we're here for fun; we're here for learning; we're here for remembering who we are, and who we are, are expressions of life so absolutely linked with the life that is, always was, always will be.

Whatever it is that calls us, that's our path. And as we walk that path, we have a chance to shine forth who we are. It affects other people around us.

Reality is divinely indifferent.

It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.

We can start working with time if you wish," Chiang said, "till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.

Every real teacher is myself in disguise.

I relax my body completely, relax my mind completely, and then imagine myself at a level where anything can happen.

We think, sometimes, there’s not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests... What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure... not only are they here-and-now, they’re all that ever lived on earth!

I was a microscopic life-form, infinitely large, stumbled backstage of its playhouse, caught a nanosecond glance of its own reality and nearly vaporized in shock.

In spite of my study, I have learned. Every grand religion begins in light. Yet only hearts hold light. Pages cannot. I have paper in my hands. Give these words to the world and they will be loved and understood by those who already know their truth. The truth doesn't burn. The truth waits for anyone who wishes to find it... only these pages will burn. At one with the stars... with the pages and their love... one with everything that is, that ever was or will be. One.

Jonathan sighed. The price of being misunderstood, he thought. They call you devil or they call you god.

The great thing about writing is, if you don't like the world, we'll create a different one.

Like everything else, Fletcher. Practice.

Does anybody learn writing, or do they just touch someone who lets them see the power of the deleted word?

One must first learn to fall if one would fly.

When I'm writing it's as if I'm the observer. It's as if that computer screen there -it used to be the typewriter - just kind of dissolves and there's this whirling tunnel of mist and there's a kind of proscenium arch, and then there are my characters, and they say what they say, and I laugh sometimes in surprise at what they say.

There is something that is transcendental about when we are immersed in that which we most love.

There is a family of us who have this yearning for a kind of excellence that we can manifest every day of our lives, a family who wants to believe we're not pawns, we're not victims on this planet, that knows we have the power within us here and now to change the world we see around us!

That which most concerns and worries you - your survival - is the only certainty you have.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why we call it the present. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And If not now, when? A brick alone is nothing but a brick. It takes a collection of bricks to build a house. Instructor, what?? You mean you teach best what you most need to learn

There were times in my life when I said, "Oh God, I'm making a terrible, terrible mistake here." And on another level it looked as if that's exactly what I had done. All of us can look back across our lives and see what we thought was a disaster was actually a blessing - from a long-term perspective, it was a blessing. With practice, we can shorten the length of time between "what a dumb mistake I've made" and "what a brilliant choice that was.

The world is a dream, you say, and it’s lovely, sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky.” “No. The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?

With every decision that anyone makes, the world changes. The decision that we give our consent to is the one that remains in our consciousness, but the one that we didn't make-that alternate world goes on in its own direction. So there's uncountable numbers of alternate "us-es."

The airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what kind of person I am, when I fly. An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding. Those things aren't destructable.

Numbers are limits, and perfection doesn't have limits.

We all know those who draw their boundaries carefully and say, "I'm only human. Nobody's perfect. I accept my limitations." And we know others who take an opposite view and say, "I can do anything I choose to do. It is in my power to change the world." And those are the ones who most often change the world.

I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.

Flyers fell a certain kinship with the sight of the earth unencrusted by humanity, they want to see it that way in one sweeping view, in reassurance that nature still exists on her own, without a chain-link fence to hold her.

For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

It took time to learn that the hard thing about writing is to let the story write itself, while one sits at the typewriter and does as little thinking as possible. It happened over and over again, and the beginner learned - when you start puzzling over an idea, and slowing down on the keys, the writing gets worse and worse.

You don't love hatred and evil, of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love.

Build an inner place to protect your truth.

You teach best that which you need most to learn.

The gull sees farthest who flies highest

Overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.

If you want magic, let go of your armor. Magic is so much stronger than steel.

Sense of family is enormously important to me. In the larger sense, we're all of us family; we're all of us soulmates.

You're master of what you've lived, artisan at what you're living, amateur at what's next to live.

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves.

Have you ever felt so at one with the world, with the universe, with everything that is, that you were overcome with love? That is reality. That is the truth. What we make of it is up to us, as the painting of the sunrise is up to the artist. In our world humanity has strayed from that love. It lives hatred and power struggles and manipulations of the earth itself for its own narrow reasons. Continue and no one will see the sunrise. The sunrise will always exist, of course, but people on earth will know nothing of it and finally even stories of its beauty will fade from our knowing.

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.

Why? What is so wonderful about mass murder that nobody in the history of the world has ever fond any smarter solution to problems than killing everybody who doesn’t agree? Is that the limit of human intelligence?

Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I'm master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell's own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.

Each of us is free to move our consciousness through that infinite pattern of possibilities as we please. If we're filled with fears, or if we trust the fears of others, we'll choose a path in which our city falls into the sea, or a path in which a third world war vaporizes us, or whatever other disaster is most thrilling or horrifying or fascinating for us.

Remember where you came from, where you’re going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place. You're going to die a horrible death, remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind. Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy.

Then be sure of one thing: The Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have. The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.

Reality lies far beyond space and time, and I need to know why.

Character comes from following our highest sense of right, from trusting ideas without being sure they’ll work.

And like no other sculpture in the history of art, the dead engine and dead airframe come to life at the touch of a human hand, and join their life with the pilot's own.

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.

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.