“Growth requires movement. And often, the only way forward is through an exit door.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 41)
“The magic in any art is not only in its technique but in its authenticity. Truth in its rawest form is what resonates most powerfully.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 39)
“Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.”
William James, Sunbeams (Page 5)
“One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one’s own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses.”
Robert Bly, Sunbeams (Page 5)
“I now understand that trying to be the ‘next’ anyone is as foolish as it sounds. The shoes you dream of filling have already been worn ragged through their soles. You’ve gotta step into your own kicks and just do you.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 38)
“The less others really knew about me, I reasoned, the less ammunition they’d have to make me look foolish. Only if I revealed my tender spots could they wound me. My true self, the one I kept so deeply concealed, only emerged in my diaries. There, I could unveil. On cotton pages scrawled with purple ink, I didn’t have to be tough or brave or capable or strong. I could just be me.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 30)
“It’s hard to pinpoint the precise moment when we internalize others’ assessments; it’s usually not just a single experience but rather a series of moments that bruise the spirit and lead us to distrust ourselves and those around us. And then we wake up at age seventeen or twenty-five or thirty-seven and realize we don’t know the last time we’ve lived life only to please ourselves.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 29)
“I’m not sure how much of identity comes threaded in our genes and how much of it is shaped by our environment, but as far back as I can recall, placing my fingertips on a keyboard felt like coming home to myself. There was no courtship phase, no period of becoming acquainted with the piano; rather, the connection was instantaneous, as comfortable and familiar for me as breathing.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 24)
“In order for the truth to set me free, I must first be brave enough to birth it.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 5)
“The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.”
Barbara De Angelis, spiritual teacher, via More Myself (Page 1)
“You try being alone, without any form of distraction, and you will see how quickly you want to get away from yourself and forget what you are. That is why this enormous structure of professional amusement, of automated distraction, is so prominent a part of what we call civilization. If you observe, you will see that people the world over are becoming more and more distracted, increasingly sophisticated and worldly. The multiplication of pleasures, the innumerable books that are being published, the newspaper pages filled with sporting events—surely, all these indicate that we constantly want to be amused. Because we are inwardly empty, dull, mediocre, we use our relationships and our social reforms as a means of escaping from ourselves. I wonder if you have noticed how lonely most people are? And to escape from loneliness we run to temples, churches, or mosques, we dress up and attend social functions, we watch television, listen to the radio, read, and so on… If you inquire a little into boredom you will find that the cause of it is loneliness. It is in order to escape from loneliness that we want to be together, we want to be entertained, to have distractions of every kind: gurus, religious ceremonies, prayers, or the latest novel. Being inwardly lonely we become mere spectators in life; and we can be the players only when we understand loneliness and go beyond it… because beyond it lies the real treasure.”
J. Krishnamurti, Think On These Things, via Sunbeams (Page 3)
“The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.”
Epictetus, via The Daily Stoic (Page 15)
“Pain ignored is still pain. And pain acknowledged is a first step toward easing that pain.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.”
Desiderius Erasmus, Sunbeams (Page 1)
“All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.”
Marcus Aurelius, via The Daily Stoic (Page 12)
“Some people hesitate to share an idea because they’re worried it will be stolen. In general, these people are afraid of success, not failure. An idea unspoken is a safe one, which not only can’t be stolen, but it can’t be tested, criticized, improved or used in the real world.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Despite having interviewed thousands of people, I still learn something new from each person I meet. Everyone has a unique expertise. The quickest way to find a person’s expertise is by learning their struggle. What they’ve battled. What they’ve carried with them the longest. Because it’s what they’ve thought about the most.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 278)
“There’s an old cliché that ‘everyone has a story,’ but there’s a reason it’s a cliché. Every person has a story because everyone has a struggle. The heart of a story is the struggle—the obstacle that has been faced, and hopefully overcome. It can be an obvious physical feat, like climbing a mountain or rescuing someone from drowning. It can be a mental battle: like depression, or addiction, or schizophrenia. It can be comedic or tragic. But none of these particular elements are the reason that struggles are crucial to a story. Struggles are crucial because they’re transformative. Struggles change people. And a well-told story merely follows the arc of that transformation.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 277)