Free My Mind Quotes & Sayings

Syn pulled Furi to his chest. "Furi, I want you to go back through the bar and go wait at my place. I'm going to have a little chat with your ex-husband," Syn said extra loudly.

Furi huffed in annoyance, "Syn, I took six months of self-defense courses at the YMCA this year. I can fight for myself."

Syn looked at Furi like he'd lost his damn mind. "At the Y? Well hell, that's great Furious. If you ever get jumped by the Village People, feel free to pull out those moves. As for now, I want you to take your karate-kicking-YMCA-going-ass back to my apartment," Syn snarled at Furi, urging him toward the door, having neither the time nor the patience to argue with his ridiculous pride. Thankfully, with one final glare Furi went back into the pub. When Syn turned back, God and Day were looking back and forth between him and his two foes.


"What's going on here, fellas?" God asked casually, not acknowledging Syn. — A.E. Via

For the eight years I was president I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind. — Ronald Reagan

Pretty soon, the only doubt in my mind was the precise time and method of committing suicide. The only alternative I could see was an eternity of hell for the rest of my life in a mental hospital, and I was going to use my last ounce of free choice and choose a quick clean ending. — Sylvia Plath

I would say that I quite consciously rely on my obsessions in all my work, that I deliberately set up an obsessional frame of mind. In a paradoxical way, this leaves one free of the subject of the obsession. — J.G. Ballard

My heart broke and my mind opened, tragedy works in a funny way like that ~ what once tore me apart was actually what was setting my truth free. — Nikki Rowe

I like to read and write because it is the ONLY thing that takes my mind off of the real world and my spinning worries. It is a time I can be free of anxiety, worry, and stress. When my life gets hectic I HAVE to read and write or I'll drown. — Shandy L. Kurth

I've seen the dark side of life. I lived the dark side of life. I live in a dark place. But it's only as dark as I make it. My body is locked up but my mind is free. — Steven Jennings

I actually think being an entrepreneur is a state of mind. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, my thesis is that you have to sacrifice everything for some period in your life to be successful. You have to be myopic and completely focused and unbalanced in every way. Once you've achieved success, you're free to do whatever you like. — Kevin O'Leary

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. — Eugene V. Debs

They may use my body but my mind is free. In my mind I escape. — Gladys Lawson

Some days my thoughts are just cocoons
all cold, and dull, and blind, They hang from dripping branches in the grey woods of my mind; And other days they drift and shine
such free and flying things! I find the gold-dust in my hair, left by their brushing wings. — Karle Wilson Baker

Cairo was, and remains, an ugly, cement-colored, park-free city, dotted with a few bewildering, mind-expanding splendors that make the whole place manic and magical. There was always noise, dirt, and exhaust, the honking of horns and the screeching of brakes. My — Richard Engel

We're all our own prisons, we are each all our own wardens and we do our own time. I can't judge anyone else. What other people do is not really my affair unless they approach me with it. Prison's in your mind. Can't you see I'm free? — Charles Manson

Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. — Stephen Hawking

[Seeing clearly] is not so difficult to achieve, and yet it is rather unusual. To my mind, it is less a question of an exalted or shrewd intelligence than of good sense, goodwill and a certain sort of courage to enable one to rise above both the pressures of one's environment and the natural inclination to close one's eyes to facts, a temptation that arises from our immediate interests and from the fear which problems inspire in us. A French essayist has said: 'What is terrible when you seek the truth, is that you find it.' You find it, and then you are no longer free to follow the biases of your personal circle, or to accept fashionable cliches. — Victor Serge

We breathe too fast to be able to grasp things in themselves or to expose their fragility. Our panting postulates and distorts them, creates and disfigures them, and binds us to them. I bestir myself, therefore I emit a world as suspect as my speculation which justifies it; I espouse movement, which changes me into a generator of being, into an artisan of fictions, while my cosmogonic verve makes me forget that, led on by the whirlwind of acts, I am nothing but an acolyte of time, an agent of decrepit universes. ( ... )
If we would regain our freedom, we must shake off the burden of sensation, no longer react to the world by our senses, break our bonds. For all sensation is a bond, pleasure as much as pain, joy as much as misery. The only free mind is the one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity. — Emil Cioran

My field was God's earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labor was the only thing men called their own. — Leo Tolstoy

Somehow, the telling of all this rinsed my mind clean and left me able to think clearly once more. By gathering and sorting my own feelings so, I was finally able to fashion a scale on which I could weigh my father's nature and find a balance between my disgust for him and an understanding of him; my guilt in the matter of his death against the debt he owed me for the manner of my life. At the finish of it, I felt free of him, and I was able to think calmly once more. Elinor — Geraldine Brooks

Ibn Rushd caressing her body had often praised its beauty to the point at which she grew irritated and said, You do not think my thoughts worth praising, then. He replied that the mind and body were one, the mind was the form of the human body, and as such was responsible for all the actions of the body, one of which was thought. To praise the body was to praise the mind that ruled it. Aristotle had said this and he agreed, and because of this it was hard for him, he whispered blasphemously in her ear, to believe that consciousness survived the body, for the mind was of the body and had no meaning without it. She did not want to argue with Aristotle and said nothing. Plato was different, he conceded. Plato thought the mind was trapped in the body like a bird and only when it could shed that cage would it soar and be free. — Salman Rushdie

Her eyes rounded. "They don't open until eleven."
"Unless you're me, and you strike up a conversation with the prep cook who starts work at seven."
"Ah."
"Get your mind out of the gutter," he said, uncurling his forefinger from around his own cup to point it at her. "His name is George and he has a wife and three kids."
"My mind's not in the gutter!" Well, not since she woke from a twenty-minute midnight doze during which she'd imagined herself stretched out on her bed, Gage standing at its foot, slowing stripping off his clothes.
He grinned at her, then reached into his front pocket to pull free a slim camera. Still juggling his coffee, he managed to bring the viewfinder to his eye and snap a shot. "I'll call it 'Guilty as Charged.'"
"That's an invasion of privacy," she said, frowning at him.
"I think that blush indicates that you've been mentally invading mine."
"Gage! — Christie Ridgway

My mother read that parents should spend quality time with their children. One way is to sign up for organized activities together. This month we're taking meditation to free the mind. Last month it was Rolfing. Have you ever Rolfed, Tone?"
"Only after the school's shepherd's pie," I said. — Julie Anne Peters

I do not know much. But there are certain advantages in not knowing. Like virgin territory, the mind is free of preconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this I understand everything. The things I do not know constitute my truth. — Clarice Lispector

Unless I can shake myself free of my dog, my flag,
of my desk, my mind, I find life a bit of a drag.
Not always, mind you. Usually I'm like my frying pan
useful, graceful, sturdy and with no caper, no plan. — Anne Sexton

Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different. Where did the expression "a place in the sun" first come from? My rational thought process cling always to the idea of free will, random event; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate. — Frances Mayes

All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with your steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind,
You shall not: I'll keep it free
Though you turn earth, sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep! — Edith Sitwell

Have you ever longed for someone so much, so deeply that you thought you would die? That your heart would just stop beating? I am longing now, but for whom I don't know. My whole body craves to be held. I am desperate to love and be loved. I want my mind to float into another's. I want to be set free from despair by the love I feel for another. I want to be physically part of someone else. I want to be joined. I want to be open and free to explore every part of them, as though I were exploring myself. — Tracey Emin

You speak of being afraid. Yet fear is something you generate in yourself, from your mind's lack of control; and you will learn to look at it and discover for yourself when you choose to be afraid. The first thing you must do is acknowledge that the fear is yours, and you can bid it come and go at will. Begin with this; whenever you feel fear that prevents choice say to yourself: 'What has made me feel fear? Why have I chosen to feel this fear preventing my choice, instead of feeling the freedom to choose?' Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you ... [Y]ou have chosen to do nothing, so that none of the things you fear will come upon you; so your choices are not made by you but by your fear ... I cannot promise to free you of your fear, only that a time will come when you are the master, and fear will not paralyze you. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Breaking free is only the beginning. Then begins the painful process of reversing the indoctrination. The longer someone stays in a cult the harder it is for them to remember who they were before the cult took control of their mind. Or in the case of someone like me, a cult-born child, my entire personality was made and created by them. When I left I had no idea who I was. My whole existence, everything I thought I knew, had been a lie.

But it is the psychological aftermath of life in a cult that is all too often the silent killer. — Natacha Tormey

It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water. — Claude Monet

I found my mind wandering at games; loved boxing and was good at it; and in summer, having chosen rowing instead of cricket, lay peacefully by the Stour, well upstream of the rhythmic creaking and the exhortation, reading Lily Christine and Gibbon and gossiping with kindred lotus-eaters under the willow-branches. — Patrick Leigh Fermor

His feet started in her direction, his body following rather as a dog would its master, with no thought of deviating from the path chosen by her for him
iAm grabbed his arm and yanked him back. "Don't even fucking think about it."
Trez's first impulse was to rip himself free, even if he left his own limb behind in his brother's grip. "I don't know what you're talking about - "
"Do not make me grab your hard-on to prove my point," iAm hissed.
Numbly, Trez looked down at the front of himself. Well. What do you know. "I'm not going to ... " Fuck her came to mind, but God, he couldn't use the f-word around that female, even in the hypothetical. "You know, do anything."
"You actually expect me to believe that."
Trez's eyes flipped over to the doorway she'd disappeared through. Shit. Talk about having no credibility on the subject of abstinence — J.R. Ward

Once the game begins, I play to that song in my head. I run to rhythm, and that allows my mind to be free. — Marshall Faulk

There was no denying that in our short time together Lena had struck hard and deep, carving out a space in my heart alongside my father - she was my first surrender to someone other than him. Like a fever reaching down every limb and muddling my mind, the ache of abandonment weakened my grip on the steering wheel and fuzzed the lanes of the highway. Loving my father was something innate - there when I was born, like the sun - but loving Lena took a leap of faith, and now that I'd lost her there were no bloodlines or primal bonds to harness the free fall. — Norman Ollestad

Please we would much rather sail free we mean you no harm I promise " he floated upright in the water frowning then bowed his head in agreement. With a flick of their tails the blue men dived and were gone. "I promise " Hannah breathed. Of course. "That's a hard one to rhyme with. Scarlet Max and Donovan leapt up and down shouting with joy. "I knew you could do it" Scarlet shrieked. "It was just luck " Hannah said "I didn't have time to think. I just said the first thing that came into my mind. I could've said I swear and then he could have said pear or mare or square ... " "That was amazing " Donovan said. "You were so quick" I didn't feel quick " Hannah grinned " I felt as thick as a brick." "O goodness she cant stop " Donovan said laughing. — Kate Forsyth

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. — Gregory David Roberts

If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free. — Sophocles

Old things climb out through my mouth and set themselves free in the air. On the high moor there are patterns and in my small mind there are patterns. [...] All the centuries drop away, and I am in the presence of something that does not know time. — Paul Kingsnorth

My will is free and connected to my Spirit. When I exercise my free will, I am calm, at peace and serene. — Kasi Kaye Iliopoulos

I accept that in a free society you have to justify reductions in people's liberties. I accept that, bearing in mind my starting point is that the most important human right is the right to life ... — John Howard

Running allows me to set my mind free. Nothing seems impossible, nothing unattainable. — Kara Goucher

I had some short struggle in my mind whether I should resign my lover or my liberty, but this lasted not long. I found myself as free as air and could not bear the thought of putting myself in any man's power for life only from a present capricious inclination. — Sarah Fielding

For a minute, I can feel it: the sense of peace as my mind goes quiet, like I'm already dead. I am weightless and free. Nothing and no one to fear, not even myself. — Jennifer Niven

My dearest Elle, I vow to love you as you deserve, protect you from those who seek to harm, and nurture you for all my days on this earth, as long as air fills my lungs. I vow, not just as your husband, but as your Dom, to worship you with every fiber of my being, my sweet sub, to free you from your emotional cage and help you discover the woman you are destined to become. I vow to be everything you need, friend, lover, mentor, keeper of your mind, body, and soul. I vow my life and everything I am to you, my world. — Lena Black

I learned to put my trust in God and to see Him as my strength. Long ago I set my mind to be a free person and not to give in to fear. I always felt that it was my right to defend myself if I could. I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. - Rosa Parks — Rosa Parks

I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind & my eyes, refusing to be stamped & stereotyped. The thing is to free ones self; to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded. (Diary 4: 187) — Thomas C. Caramagno

Bran," I sob. "You have to go." He just smiles. "Bran! You must!" Again the smile. He won't leave. He'll be my faithful friend forever. He'd rather die by my side than skip free without me. I return the smile. "Very well," I sigh and reach out a hand. Bran takes it, expecting only my touch. But what he gets on top of that is the last of my magic. A swift, improvised spell. I reach into his mind and send an image into his thoughts, of the hole, him dashing out of it, racing through the cave and not coming back. And then, with all the magical force I can muster, I yell at him - "Run fast! — Darren Shan

I talked some more, let my tongue wag, let my mind run free, and it felt pretty good. It's a wonderful thing to have somebody in your life whom you can say absolutely anything to. Not to have that is almost unthinkable to me. — James Patterson

She is walking several feet ahead, pretending I don't exist, but that's okay, I'm used to it, and what she doesn't know is that is doesn't faze me. People either see me or they don't. I wonder what it's like to walk down the street, safe and easy in your skin, and just blend right in. No one turning away, no one starring, no one waiting and expecting, wondering what stupid, crazy thing you'll do next
Then I can't hold back anymore, and I take off running, and it feels good to break free from the slow, regular pace of everyone else. I break free from my mind, which is, for some reason, picturing myself as dead as the authors of the books she has collected, asleep for good this time, buried deep in the ground under layers and layers of dirt and cornfields. I can almost feel the earth closing in, the air going stale and damp, the dark pressing down on top of me, and I have to open my mouth to breath. — Jennifer Niven

Once I was free; there was no cage that could bind me, and I had yet to create my box of numbness within my mind to be my silent protector. — J.D. Stroube

Baby's World
I wish I could take a quiet corner in the heart of my baby's very
own world.
I know it has stars that talk to him, and a sky that stoops
down to his face to amuse him with its silly clouds and rainbows.
Those who make believe to be dumb, and look as if they never
could move, come creeping to his window with their stories and with
trays crowded with bright toys.
I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind,
and out beyond all bounds;
Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms
of kings of no history;
Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, the Truth
sets Fact free from its fetters. — Rabindranath Tagore

I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really, really liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else. I liked his voice. I liked that he took existentially fraught free throws. I liked that he was a tenured professor in the Department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I liked that he had two names. I've always liked people with two names, because you get to make up your mind what you call them: Gus or Augustus? — John Green

Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme-and my mind is free verse. — Holly Schindler

I owe you a small thanks, for you have made me far more sure of my own position by letting me see the case for free choice put forward with all the energy of so distinguished and powerful a mind, but with no other effect than to make things worse than before. — Martin Luther

I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded. — Virginia Woolf

One of Coin's men lays a hand on my arm. Its not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena's I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places and i wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk. — Suzanne Collins

I personally do not listen to a lot of music. It helps keep my mind free. I don't want to sound like someone else from the get-go. I want to express myself and the world in my head. — Victoria Legrand

Max replies, "Why the fuck n- Oh man, are you gettin' lucky?"
I quickly do up Asher's jeans and stand. Max bursts into laughter when he sees my head ascend and chuckles, "Shit, guys. Warn a brother. Did you at least finish?"
Ash smiles big fluffling my hair, I tell Max, "I never start something I don't plan to finish."
Ash wraps his arm around me and Max shakes his head. He says, "Well if you two don't mind, I think I'm gonna make this a blowjob free zone from now on. — Belle Aurora

I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day. — Matthew Quick

I have passed in ignorance through a cycle of many rebirths, seeking the builder of the house. Continuous rebirth is a painful thing. But now, housebuilder, I have found you out. You will not build me a house again. All your rafters are broken, your ridge-pole shattered. My mind is free from active thought, and has made an end of craving. — Gautama Buddha

Dear God, Please teach me to forgive myself and others. Remove the walls that keep love out, behind which I am a prisoner. Heal my guilt and remove my anger, that I might be reborn. Make gentle my heart and strong my spirit and show me how to love. Please show me how to honor myself. Please teach me how to listen to myself.
Please program my mind to know itself, that I might at last be free. Teach me to appreciate your spirit that lives within me. Show me how to be good to myself, that I might know more fully the goodness of life. Amen — Marianne Williamson

I liked him, there was no doubt about that. But I wasn't sure if he was good for me or not. I didn't always stick to things that were good for me - positively railed against it sometimes - but he was a different type of not good for me. He did things to my mind and body that I hadn't ever experienced before.
But it wasn't as if I could get him out of my head either: every moment I had free would suddenly be crammed with thoughts of him. His soft lips, the gentle urgency with which they'd kissed me. The intoxicating smell of his skin. His moss-green eyes that would follow everything I said, then would meet my eyes so we could share a smile. It was driving me slowly and pleasurably insane. — Dorothy Koomson

I'm not a wildly gifted person; I don't play an instrument or speak another language or have great accomplishments in another field, as many writers do. But writing feels natural to me; the act of it seems to free up my unconscious, so that sometimes I feel that I have access to more ideas and information than my conscious mind could think up. — Jennifer Egan

When I dream about music, or think about music, by myself, I try to be as free as possible and allow my creative mind full reign. — John Dieterich

My escape route was to emphasize the
idea of "choice." If a woman had a
right to wear a miniskirt, surely I had the right to choose my headscarf. My choice was a sign of my independence
of mind. Surely, to choose to wear
what I wanted was an
assertion of my feminism. I was a feminist, wasn't I?
But I was to learn that
choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off. And that lesson was an important reminder of how truly "free" choice is. — Mona Eltahawy

You study Yoga in India, Liss?" he asks. "Yes, Ketut." "You can do Yoga," he says, "but Yoga too hard." Here, he contorts himself in a cramped lotus position and squinches up his face in a comical and constipated-looking effort. Then he breaks free and laughs, asking, "Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. All finish for today. See you later, alligator. Come back tomorrow. I am very happy to see you, Liss. Let your conscience be your guide. If you have Western friends come to visit Bali, bring them to me for palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Casting back her head, Arya gazed up at the twinkling sky, her long neck gold with firelight, her face pale with the radiance of the heavenx. "Do you ask out of friendly concern or your own self-interest?" She gave an abrupt, choked laugh, the sound of water falling over cold rocks. "Never mind. The night air has addled me. It has undone my sense of courtesy and left me free to say the most spiteful things that occur to me."
"No matter."
"It does matter, because I regret it, and I shall not tolerate it. Did I love Faolin? How would you define love? For over twenty years, we traveled together, the only immortals to walk among the short-lived races. We were companions ... and friends. — Christopher Paolini

The smell of grease in the Horseshoe Diner was strong, like the residuals of every meal that had ever been cooked over its open griddle. I lingered in a corner booth near the window, speaking to my wife Ava on the cell phone. With as much free time as a corpse, I pondered past mistakes, but I kept the call short before she asked too many questions and revived the dying thoughts in my mind. A man was a sharp and useful tool, I thought, as long as he never paused to consider it. — Christopher Klim

It had been impossible to decide how they were going to do it, because the goblin rarely left Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone together for more than five minutes at a time: "He could give my mother lessons," growled Ron, as the goblin's long fingers kept appearing around the edges of doors. With Bill's warning in mind, Harry could not help suspecting that Griphook was on the watch for possible skullduggery. Hermione disapproved so heartily of the planned double-cross that Harry had given up attempting to pick her brains on how best to do it; Ron, on the rare occasion that they had been able to snatch a few Griphook-free moments, had come up with nothing better than "We'll just have to wing it, mate. — J.K. Rowling

Very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England..and how nowadays...we would have to seek them outside...Thanks be to God Almighty that we now have any supply of teachers at all!...As often as you can, free yourself from worldly affairs so that you may apply that wisdom which God gave you wherever you can. Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves didn't cherish learning nor transmit it to other men. — King Alfred The Great

I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want. — Bobby Fischer

Do I as a Christian understand myself? Do I know my own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God, God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Saviour is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over again to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time when your mind is free, and ask God that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this is the Christians secret of the Christian life, of a God-honouring life. — J.I. Packer

One new indulgence was to go out evenings alone. This I worked out carefully in my mind, as not only a right but a duty. Why should a woman be deprived of her only free time, the time allotted to recreation? Why must she be dependent on some man, and thus forced to please him if she wished to go anywhere at night?
A stalwart man once sharply contested my claim to this freedom to go alone. "Any true man," he said with fervor, "is always ready to go with a woman at night. He is her natural protector." "Against what?" I inquired. As a matter of fact, the thing a woman is most afraid to meet on a dark street is her natural protector. Singular — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow. — Bob Dylan

All the unhallowed beauty I have found; All free - discordant shrills and form-defying wonders above ground, like writhen trees with draggled foliage struggling along the courses of wayback creeks; scarlet - and - green sky - streaking parrot - fires with parrot shrieks echo - shattering the shoulders of the hills; and desert - sunset - rage Rage for my mind, be clamant, do not cease you are my holiest habitat of peace. — Rex Ingamells

I exercised my mental muscles in the library, and lo and behold, I transformed myself from a casual reader into a focused one. So it was more than just free books, but also free space and a culture that reinforced settling down, deep reading, thinking, imagining, and exploring with my mind. I am no doubt a writer today because I had a place to go as a kid, where I knew stories were essential, and where everybody also reveled in the wonder within books. — Sergio Troncoso

On bended knee is no way to be free
lifting up an empty cup I ask silently
that all my destinations will accept the one that's me
so I can breath
Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
half their lives they say goodnight to wive's they'll never know
got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul
so it goes ... — Eddie Vedder

Youth. I don't seek it through another because I have it within; it's a state of mind, a spirit that is free, and a mind that is playful. The shell of my being is altered by the effects of time, but nothing will tarnish a soul that will never forget what its like to experience creation with endless wonder and appreciation. Each time I see the first snowfall of the season I feel it's the first time I've seen it at all. — Donna Lynn Hope

There is a part of me that no one ever sees.
I hide behind a mask of heavy make-up and ever-changing hair and clothing. I try to reinvent myself. It doesn't work. There are times when I am bone-crushingly sad. I just want to curl into a ball and hide from the rest of the world. But, I plaster on a smile and play the game for my family and friends. They call me a free spirit.
I wish I were free. I feel like I am imprisoned by my own mind. — Julia Crane

What shall I do?" she asked in a small voice.
"Forget your own self," he said.
"But all these years," she urged, "I have so carefully fulfilled my duty."
"Always with the thought of your own freedom in your mind," he said.
She could not deny it. She sat motionless, her hands folded on the pearl-gray satin of her robe. "Direct me," she said at last.
"Instead of your own freedom, think how you can free others," he said gently.
She lifted her head.
"From yourself," he said still gently. — Pearl S. Buck

I can't take this kind of suspense. Decide now." He untied the ropes around her wrists. "Walk out the door. In a year you'll be free of any entanglements with me. Or stay and be my wife. My real wife. Make your choice."
She looked down at the loosened ropes still wrapped around her, then up at him.
He wore an expression of fierce indifference, but she knew better. This proud man, this noble marquees, had made up his mind he wished to marry her without knowing who she was or what she'd done. She would guess the decision was his first impetuous gesture since the day his mother had disappeared.
Amy couldn't fool herself. For him to go so contrary to his own nature, he must feel an overwhelming emotion for her. — Christina Dodd

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing. — Charles Bukowski

WHEN I STILL USED, I WAS ONCE WORKING IN IBIZA, HEDONISM capital of the nineties and the turn of the millennium. People swayed in sweaty swathes and stayed, pilled-up for days. I couldn't participate, because I was too shy or broken, caught on some taut barbed wire in my mind. Me and my mate Matt, high one night, lost ourselves, found ourselves in a wood and pretended to be animals. It was just us, and we prowled and circled around. We locked eyes and growled and danced. "Let's pretend we're animals" was forgotten, and we were animals. We are animals. We are free animals with a divine spark, we're not in a farm or a zoo or a theme park, we're free. We've forgotten that we're free. — Russell Brand

We danced alone, apart, without time. It was not Jade who bit or clawed my shoulders. It was the creature at the root of her being, hidden beyond the bursts of color, the quivering muscles, exposed when joy shakes the mind free of the constraints of traditional thinking and leaves it standing warm in the sunshine, naked, asking to be taught anew. It was Jade. — Kevin R. Hill

And I go back to Eden, in my mind, to imagine what it is going to be like for you and me in heaven. I suppose it will be a new and marvelous paradise, where love will exist in its purest form, where the beauty of diversity will be understood for the first time, where self-hatred will fade into an agreement with with God about the splendor of His creation, where physical beauty will no longer be used as a commodity, where you and I will feel free in our sincere love for others, ourselves, and God. And I suppose it will be in heaven that you and I actually understand each other, all the drama of the lifeboat a distant memory, all the arguments we has seeming so inconsequential, and the glory of God before us in all His majesty, shining like sunlight through our souls. — Donald Miller

Still blows my mind that toilet paper isn't free. — Kristen Schaal

My mind was clear and penetrating at the time, for it was midnight, the hour at which I am most brave and most free. — Vera Caspary

For so many years I lived in constant terror of myself. Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me, bowing my will to its whispers until I was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too terrified to disagree. I had been shackled, a prisoner in my own mind.
But finally, finally, I have learned to break free. — Tahereh Mafi

My deceased patients have taught me over the years to believe in the glass half full, to make good use of the time we have, to be generous - that was their lesson for the Uber-mind, and it was free. 'Do that,' they said, 'and then perhaps death shall have no dominion.' — Abraham Verghese

I am often amused and sometimes amazed by the free-reign constructs of my mind. That is why I converse regularly with myself - I am one of my better friends... — Gavin Mills

For a time, I was quite literally at loss as to what to do with myself. For more than half a century I had looked after Suleiman.My daily existence had been shaped by his needs, his companionship. Now I was free to do as I wished, but I found the freedom illusory, for what I wished for the most had been taken from me. They say, find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind. And now that I had fulfilled mine, I felt aimless and adrift. — Khaled Hosseini

At the end of the day, when the sun falls a willing prisoner of the night ... and humans, males and females alike, become submitted to the mistress of the dark, my mind begins to wander and wonder. Looking upwards at a blank slate of concrete, the psyque expresses freely what my subconscious is afraid to give free rein. And there and then, between the play of reality and dreamland, I find my place. I find myself. — Eiry Nieves

They say 'stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage'. It was a quotation I knew as a boy. I had made it my own back then. I knew they couldn't capture my mind. Whilst I could still think, I was free. — Denis Avey

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with. — Haruki Murakami

I told you from the beginning - as soon as I could - I told you I was afraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit - contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse - all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. — George Eliot

It almost occurred;
It almost got hold of my purity,
Just as it headed for the war within my being,
I fed it a light so bright;
It thought it almost had control of me.
Depression is just a dis-ease,
So; Let your mind be free — Nikki Rowe

I prefer to use 'The Medieval Scapini Tarot' deck produced by U.S. Games Systems Inc., Stamford, Connecticut. The cards are beautiful, captivating and of excellent quality, and I endorse them wholeheartedly.

I should add that I have no connection with U.S. Games Systems, and this is an unbiased endorsement. That having been said, if U.S. Games Systems were appreciative of my comments, and offered me many free packs of cards (or large sums of money) as a charming gesture of goodwill, I should be happy to accept such tokens without compromising my integrity in any way. They might like to bear in mind that in future editions of this book my endorsements may have 'evolved' in the direction of other card companies who are, perhaps, a little more generous in their appreciation of my valuable judgements. — Ian Rowland

Open the curtains of your mind, my friend; let the world know who you are! Do not hide your ideas; set them free, let them free! Open the curtains! Feel no fear! If there is truth in your ideas, you become invincible! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Being-in-the-world means that I am inextricably knit into the fabric of this fluid, indivisible, and contingent reality I share with others. There is no room for a disembodied mind or soul, however subtle, to float free from this condition, to contemplate it from a hypothetical Archimedean point outside. Without such a mind or soul, it is hard to conceive of anything that will go on into another life once this one comes to an end. My actions, like the words of dead philosophers, may continue to reverberate and bear fruits long after my death, but I will not be around to witness them. — Stephen Batchelor

I'm going to possess you, Charlotte,"
His free hand caressed the flesh of her throat, then threaded into the hair at her nape, pulling the strands there, tipping her head back. Not harshly, but not gently either. "I;m going to take you and claim you and make you beg."
His lips were breaths from hers. Breaths she couldn't count or take.
"The question is, will you passively accept such, or will you possess me right back," he whispered, nearly against her lips. "Take me, claim me? Make me beg? Push from my mind any though that isn't you? — Anne Mallory

Liberation

My mind is clouded,
I cannot hunt anymore.
I lay my gun over the tracks of the rabbit.

It was as though I became that creature
who could not decide
whether to flee or be still
and so was trapped in the pursuer's eyes-

And for the first time I knew
those eyes have to be blank
because it is impossible
to kill and question at the same time.

Then the shutter snapped,
the rabbit went free. He flew
through the empty forest

that part of me
that was the victim.
Only victims have a destiny.

And the hunter, who believed
whatever struggles
begs to be torn apart:

that part is paralyzed. — Louise Gluck