It’s not that I decide what to write and carry it out. It’s more that I grope my way towards something—not even knowing what it is until I’ve arrived.

 Kathryn Harrison

If I were to die in a fall from the breakwater, the last thing I’d smell would be the seaweed rotting on the beach. The last thing I’d see would be my mother’s face, like that of a clock: still, flat, and white [...]

Kathryn Harrison 

She will accept, acknowledge, see me only in as much as I will make myself the child who pleases her.

― Kathryn Harrison, The Kiss: A Memoir

I have to write. It’s not an option. When I write, I am literally building myself a place in which to live. Kathryn Harrison

When I’m writing the way I want, the way I love, which is without thinking about what I’m writing, a strange thing happens: I feel simultaneously the most myself I could possibly be, and at the same time totally relieved of self. I become, I guess, a version of myself that isn’t filtered through the detritus and clutter of experience. We can’t control so much of what happen to us in life. Even our own actions unfold in time in ways we can’t possibly imagine. But there is someone inside who remains untouched by all of that. That person may not really exist in the light, but she is there, waiting, in the dark.

― Kathryn Harrison

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Carl Gustav Jung

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. Thich Nhat Hanh

When the resistance is gone, so are the demons. Pema Chödrön

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself. Alan Watts

Let your body relax and your heart soften.

To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own. Jack Kornfield

 Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting. Jack Kornfield

The way of love is the way of no-expectation. Love exists only when there is a total acceptance and no desire to change anything. Osho

Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man. G.K. Chesterton

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go. Hermann Hesse

 “Conversation between a princess and an outlaw:
"If I stand for fairy-tale balls and dragon bait--dragon bait--what do you stand for?"
"Me? I stand for uncertainty, insecurity, bad taste, fun, and things that go boom in the night."
"Franky, it seems to me that you've turned yourself into a stereotype."
"You may be right. I don't care. As any car freak will tell you, the old models are the most beautiful, even if they aren't the most efficient. People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve."
"Well, you may get off on being a beautiful stereotype, regardless of the social consequences, but my conscience won't allow it."
"And I goddamn refuse to be dragon bait. I'm as capable of rescuing you as you are of rescuing me."
"I'm an outlaw, not a hero. I never intended to rescue you. We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions. ― Tom Robbins

In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak.
― Tom Robbins

You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one's life. So you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That's not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one's clichés.

― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

You've heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought about calling in well?

It'd go like this: You'd get the boss on the line and say, "Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore." Call in well.
― Tom Robbins  

Tom Robbins from Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”

At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes.

“The key word here is roots,” Maestra had countered. “The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression.”

“Yeah but Maestra—”

“Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser—a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician—can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol’ doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we’re soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse’s Mouth. And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me— you and I: excuse me—may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.”

“But what about self-esteem?”

“Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace—and maybe even glory.”
― Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum.

  ― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker