"Anything we do for a long time can become stale if we’re not careful. Suddenly there are conditions, demands, desires for recognition, success, profit, improvement. In Zen, this is called “gaining idea,” and it’s antithetical to zazen. “Our way to sit is not to acquire something; it is to express our true nature,” Suzuki Roshi wrote. “That is our practice.”" — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"The flip side of freedom is avoidance, and for years we’d been sliding into fixed, unspoken assumptions and interpretations of who we were, separately and together: I was independent and strong (read, unloving and stubborn). He was steady and reliable (read, emotionally unavailable). We’d been storing up these stories about ourselves and each other for so long that we’d started to believe them, and, at the same time, we hated them. Hated them so fiercely it sometimes felt as though we hated each other...If I can channel compassion, I am not mad." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Due to the patriarchal understanding of man as norm and woman as other, the wider world often struggles to comprehend anyone drawing on femininities who is not regarded as a woman. Such expression is often heavily policed. Whereas anyone drawing on masculinities is understandable: of course people would want to be masculine. Because masculinity is regarded as superior to femininity, anything associated with femininity on a man is highly visible, whereas masculinity on women is often unremarked." — Meg-John Barker Gender: A Graphic Guide
"If we stay in the story too long, it becomes a cage." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"We each have our own true way. We can imitate or be inspired, but we can only really ever be ourselves." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Hard as it might be to accept, trying to fix someone is deeply narcissistic behavior." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Trying to find happiness in “having” or in someone else’s version of it is like chasing the horizon: you might end up where you were looking, but you’ll never recognize it because your eyes are still fixed outward." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Was I the person, the climber, that I believed I had been? Those events shaped who I was, and now they were receding into the distance." — Chris Jones Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968
"To pit oneself against the mountain is necessary for every climber: to pit oneself merely against other players, and make a race of it, is to reduce to the level of a game what is essentially an experience… the mere setting up of a record is of very minor importance. What he values is a task that, demanding of him all he has and is, absorbs and so releases him entirely." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"Don't get caught up in what others are doing—we all have our own paths, our own losses and wins. For me, curiosity and wonder are the driving forces. Curiosity is a powerful thing." — Jeremy Jones The Art of Shralpinism
"We are mirrors reflecting onto each other. The people we surround ourselves with shape us, and we shape those around us, too." — Brad Stulberg Outside Online, "Good Vibes Are Contagious"
"People are linked, not ranked, with each other, with nature and with the universe." — Gloria Steinem
"If you try to be right instead of being kind, you will be remembered as neither." — Jimmy Funkhouser via Brendan Leonard Semi-Rad, "One of the Smartest Things Anyone Has Ever Said to Me"
"We sometimes think we have a lot of bad news, but what we often have are small problems plus a huge amount of first-world entitlement." — Brendan Leonard Adventure Journal, "The Not-So-Bad Bad Day"
"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant." — 11th Doctor Doctor Who, "Vincent and the Doctor"
"But I was never sure what I was passionate about. Growing up, I was fiercely shy. I liked going outside and playing make-believe. The rush of [puberty] hormones brought with them depression and body-related insecurities. I ran track and cross-country in high school, focused on good grades and good running times. I didn’t really indulge in my own interests. To be honest, I felt a little directionless." — Gale Straub She Explores, Episode 4, "Origin Story"
"And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It’s the one place we can’t leave. We’re there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn’t, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn’t do that?" — Cheryl Strayed Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
"In order to be happy, we need first of all to let go of our ideas of happiness. It’s difficult. Each one of us has an idea of happiness; we think that we must have this or that to be happy, or that we have to eliminate this or that to be happy. We think that we have to have certain conditions. ... If we haven’t been able to be happy and joyful, it’s because we’re caught in our ideas. So we have to be able to let them go. Our idea of happiness is the main obstacle to happiness." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Relax
"You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at." — Tina Fey
"If you spent less time bitching about your life, you’d possibly enjoy it more." — Unknown
