Quotes & Sayings About Playfulness

Play is an expression of God's presence in the world; one clear sign of God's absence in society is the absence of playfulness and laughter. — Mike Yaconelli

The gifts of fate come with a price. For those who have been favored by life's indulgence, rigorous respect in matters of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement. Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are forgotten or reborn, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to be entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misusage when using language, one must first and foremost have sworn one's total allegiance. Society's elect, those whom fate has spared from the servitude that is the lot of the poor, must, consequently, shoulder the double burden of worshipping and respecting the splendors of language. — Muriel Barbery

You better not be ready to pass out," I told him. "You're way too big for me to pick up."
He cocked his head to the side and regarded me. "And what would you do, Rimmel?" The way he said my name brushed over me like a fine caress. "If I passed out right here?" He bent at the knees as he spoke so he could get closer to my eye level. I saw the playfulness in his depths. I knew he was probably drunk and wouldn't remember this tomorrow. I told myself beer made people do crazy things.
I lifted my chin and returned his gaze. "Well," I said, wetting my lips with the tip of my tongue. "I'd just have to run over you on my way out."
The whites of his eyes grew bigger when they widened in surprise. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
- Rimmel & Romeo — Cambria Hebert

Perfectionism kills art. I find that if I criticise myself, it spoils the fun. You can get paralysed by analysis - it takes all the playfulness away. — Geri Halliwell

I loved the playfulness of fashion. I think maybe that's why I became an actress. You put on one outfit and feel one way, and another one will make you feel another way. Clothes are a wonderful tool. — Melissa McCarthy

Perhaps it is his goofy laugh and silly grin that made people underestimate him; certainly his playfulness contributed to that perception. At their wedding reception, Jeff [Bezos] and MacKenzie provided an outdoor adult play area that included water balloons. — Richard L. Brandt

Playful stimulation probably hits all kinds of synaptic possibilities. It is all make-believe and all over the map. The potentiality of the synapses and the potentiality of playfulness are a beautiful marriage. — Brian Sutton-Smith

Playfulness, humour and even a sense of the anarchic are companions of reverence because they insist on the proper proportion of the human presence in the light of the eternal. — John O'Donohue

A lot of nonsense was the innocent result of playfulness on the part of the founding fathers of the nation of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. The founders were aristocrats, and they wished to show off their useless education, which consisted of the study of hocus-pocus from ancient times. They were bum poets as well. — Kurt Vonnegut

I do have a very conscious desire not to be academic. I'm antiacademic. I hate jargon. I hate that sort of pretension. I am a person who [commits] breaches of decorum - not in private life, but in my work. They are part of my mode of operation. That kind of playfulness is part of my nature in general. The paradox that, in a way, to take something very seriously, you can't always be serious about it. — William H Gass

Something I always wanted to do, to capture that later half of the '70s. It's like the early half of the '70s is still the '60s, in that there's still kind of a playfulness and inventiveness in terms of design and the things that were going on in the culture. The second half, it got much more commodified. It's possibly the ugliest era of architecture and clothes and design in the entire 20th century, from 1975 to '81 or '82. — Daniel Clowes

The moment you start seeing life as non-serious, a playfulness,
all the burden on your heart disappears.
All the fear of death, of life, of love - everything disappears. — Osho

...he made her blood rush as hot as it has at fifteen, coupled with a playfulness she had nearly forgotten she once possessed. — Joyce DiPastena

Take life easily, lovingly, playfully, non-seriously. Seriousness is a disease, the greatest disease of the soul and playfulness the greatest health. — Rajneesh

To me there is nothing more sacred than love and laughter, and there is nothing more prayerful than playfulness. When you are in love, all fears disappear, and when you become love yourself, even death becomes irrelevant. Jesus is not very far away from the truth when he says, "God is love." Certainly God is power, the greatest power. I want to improve upon Jesus: I don't say God is love, I say love is God. To me God is only a symbol and love is a reality. God is only a myth - love is the experience of millions of people. God is only a word, but love can become a dance in your heart. — Rajneesh

As God contains all good things, He must also contain a sense of playfulness
a gift he has shared with Creatures other than ourselves, as witness the tricks Crows play, and the sportiveness of Squirrels, and the frolicking of Kittens. — Margaret Atwood

Many people know how to work hard; many others know how to play well; but the rarest talent in the world is the ability to introduce elements of playfulness into work, and to put some constructive labor into our leisure. — Sydney J. Harris

Most survivors grew up too fast. Their vulnerable child-selves got lost in the need to protect and deaden themselves. Reclaiming the inner child is part of the healing process. Often the inner child holds information and feelings for the adult. Some of these feelings are painful; others are actually fun. The child holds the playfulness and innocence the adult has had to bury. — Laura Davis

I believe in romance ... in playfulness ... in passion ... in expressing feelings ... in friendship ... in all the ways love heals, nourishes, and transforms "you" and "me" into an "us". — Steve Maraboli

Camp is a solvent of morality. It neutralizes moral indignation, sponsors playfulness. — Susan Sontag

Despite what you've been conditioned to believe, sexual desire is sacred and virtuous. When you and your beloved merge physically and emotionally, you go beyond the boundaries of the ego and experience timelessness, naturalness, playfulness and defenselessness . — Deepak Chopra

In the short term, there is scant room for dreaming, for one must choose between being taken seriously and being visionary. In the long term, however, leadership cannot afford to overlook the wisdom of dreams, even the wisdom of playful dreaming. Vision that bounds higher than the barriers that confine us often spring from earnest playfulness. — John Carver

Giovanni had awakened an itch, had released a gnaw in me. I realized it one afternoon, when I was taking him to work via the Boulevard Montparnasse. We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and the spectacle we presented, two grown men jostling each other on the wide sidewalk and aiming the cherry pits, as though they were spitballs, into each other's faces, must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon. — James Baldwin

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and smile. — Edward Hoagland

To speak, to write , without charm is to make utterances without reference to a reality outside oneself. It is an act devoid of the playfulness of art, without the attractive humility of one who know absolutely that others exist and therefore feels drawn to please them, because to give them an instant of pleasure is to acknowledge their existence. — Patricia Hampl

He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road. — John Eldredge

Parents and educators need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance. — Guy Claxton

It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value". — Richard Stallman

The pure playfulness of certain wholly whimsical portions of (Charles) Cros's work should not obscure the fact that at the center of some of his most beautiful poems a revolver is leveled straight at us. — Andre Breton

I am sure that I am in possession of a soul that is at the very least, a thousand years old. And I say this not on a whim; I say this as someone who is sure of something, who is not thinking fancifully but who is thinking solidly and fully. So why is it that I am childlike and playful? There is only one answer to this, and that is, after existing for a very long time, one learns the skill of retaining childlikeness and the state of childlikeness, which is called playfulness. The immature are not childlike and they are not playful; rather, they are manipulative and insecure. Manipulation is the game of the immature and insecurity is their state of being. I'm saying this because I want to draw the great distinction in the sand very clearly. The older your soul becomes, the more childlike it will be in texture. But we only make playtime out of small and joyful things; there is no playtime when it comes to bravery, honesty, and trust. — C. JoyBell C.

As a child, I always liked dressing up and getting into character, and actors are lucky in being able to retain that playfulness, though we do seem to find it hard to grow up. — Felicity Jones

Emil on top of me, his breath heavy on my neck. As our eyes met and held, the playfulness turned into something else entirely, something with a lot more heat. Emil leaned in, barely brushing his lips against my own he whispered, "We were good at this then too."
As his soft lips met mine, my entire body felt molten - liquid and hot, moving seamlessly with his. — Angela Corbett

I think there's a playfulness and a distance to Kavalier and Clay that I don't aspire to in my stuff. Maybe I'm more old-fashioned, and less of a fabulist, in that way. — Jim Shepard

It's pretty awesome to see people dressed up in period clothing and running around on horses and in carriages and all that kind of thing. Part of the fun of making a period film is just that playfulness. It's just like make believe when you're a child except you get to do it for a real job. — Cary Fukunaga

Sometimes I feel like I'm lacking a playfulness. I envy guys who are consistently able to maintain a playful, optimistic perspective on things. — Eric Dane

Children are inspiring because they are open and a lot more intelligent than grown ups. They also have contagious playfulness and joy. For me as an artist the challenge of having a child is having to think ahead a lot more. Which in a way is good, since I sometimes lack self-discipline. — Olof Arnalds

The essence of real creativity is a certain playfulness, a flitting from idea to idea without getting bogged down by fixated demands. Of course, you don't always get what you thought you were asking for. — Vernor Vinge

The bows, the polka dots, the color, the playfulness - you don't have to over do it. You just have to be able to style it in the right way. — Christian Siriano

As radical as it may seem, it is possible to do things only out of play. I believe that to the degree that we engage moment by moment in the playfulness of enriching life- motivated solely by the desire for its enrichment- to that degree are we being compassionate with ourselves. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

take things like playfulness and purposelessness very seriously. . . . This is not meant to be light, but I think I would have somehow encouraged myself to let go a little bit more and hang in there and not pretend to know where this is all going. You don't need to know where it's all going. — Timothy Ferriss

What rent do you pay here?" I inquired. "I don't know, - what is it, Sam?" "All we make," answered Sam. It is a depressing place, - bare, unshaded, with no charm of past association, only a memory of forced human toil, - now, then, and before the war. They are not happy, these black men whom we meet throughout this region. There is little of the joyous abandon and playfulness which we are wont to associate with the plantation Negro. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Life's first relationship was not to walk hand-in-hand with joy and playfulness, but with anxiety and a most ancient species of paranoia. Its first affair was not with security, but uncertainty. Its first marriage was to intimidation and fear, and from that turbulence it found its defiance, long before it stumbled upon anything resembling affinity. — John Zande

Healing is not only a specific method, healing is also to invite another person into our own inner light, to invite another person into our presence, love, joy, acceptance, humor, understanding, playfulness, meditation and silence. Healing can also be a loving word, an understanding glance, a present touch, a silent listening or simply joking with another person and making him or her happy. Humor is also one of the strongest healing powers to see our situation and ourselves in a new and creative light. — Swami Dhyan Giten

It's OK to stand back. But it's also good to demonstrate that it's fun to be involved. As long as you are willing to say, 'This looks fun. I'd like to try this, too,' your child will mimic your example of openness, playfulness and optimism. — Julia Cameron

The good life is best construed as a matrix that includes happiness, occasional sadness, a sense of purpose, playfulness, and psychological flexibility, as well autonomy, mastery, and belonging. — Robert Biswas-Diener

I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness." — Mark Leyner

All your seriousness is about sandcastles. And you yourself will leave them one day, trampling them down, and you will not look back. The people who take it seriously miss the beauty of playfulness. — Rajneesh

Isabel smiled. She liked a conversation that went in odd directions; she liked the idea of playfulness in speech. People could be so depressingly literal. Jamie — Alexander McCall Smith

(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities, ... art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and ... art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable. — Meredith Monk

Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential. — Mary Russell Mitford

In the years since The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, Voinovich has sharpened his satire, and Monumental Propaganda is a novel that slashes and rips
but not on every page. He expands his narrative to accommodate shrewd philosophy and inventive portraiture, a very amusing disquisition on Soviet latrines and a number of outlandish plot developments. In his translation, Andrew Bromfield deftly shifts his tone and tools as required, remaining true to Voinovich's Vonnegut-like playfulness and appreciation of the absurd. — Ken Kalfus

Today, make time to play. — Na'ama Yehuda

when cynicism becomes the default language, playfulness and invention become impossible. — Caitlin Moran

There's a certain pleasure of the life of the mind that cannot be denied. There's a certain pleasure about being around people who enact a playfulness when it comes to the world of ideas. — Cornel West

Tell me, Miss Hathaway ... what would you do if you were invited on a midnight ride across the earth and ocean? Would you choose the adventure, or stay safely at home?"
She couldn't seem to tear her gaze from his. The topaz eyes were lit by a glint of playfulness, not the innocent mischief of a boy, but something far more dangerous. She could almost believe he might actually change form and appear beneath her window one night, and carry her away on midnight wings ...
"Home, of course," she managed in a sensible tone. "I don't want adventure."
"I think you do. I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself."
"I don't have moments of weakness. Not that kind, at any rate."
His laughter curled around her like a drift of smoke. "You will. — Lisa Kleypas

We come to recognize that playfulness, as a philosophical stance, can be very serious indeed; and moreover, that it possesses an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule and hostility in those among us who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint. — Friedrich Nietzsche

But suffering from a life-threatening disease also helped me have a different attitude and perspective. It has given a new intensity to life, for I realize how much I used to take for granted-the love and devotion of my wife, the laughter and playfulness of my grandchildren, the glory of a splendid sunset, the dedication of my colleagues. The disease has helped me acknowledge my own mortality, with deep thanksgiving for the extraordinary things that have happened in my life, not least in recent times. What a spectacular vindication it has been, in the struggle against apartheid, to live to see freedom come, to have been involved in finding the truth and reconciling the differences of those who are the future of our nation. — Desmond Tutu

Once I really started to understand Frank Stella's work and follow it, there's a certain type of invention and playfulness and extreme rigor with which he kept going forward. — Frank Stella

God, the universe, life, whatever name you give to the bigger picture, is experiencing itself through you as a human being. A journey from effortlessness, playfulness, freedom, to human doing, suffering and beyond. You can all return to the effortlessness, playfulness, freedom and being, by allowing your moment-by-moment experience, allowing your feelings of pain, suffering, rage, anger and envy to be felt, observed and tenderly allowed. No more self-beating, no more rushing against the tide, no more trying to steer that canoe, for life knows the way, always has and always will. — Kelly Martin

Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends. — Philip Roth

The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity. — Joseph Joubert

A man of knowing attains to a sense of humour. Let this always be remembered. If you see someone who has no sense of humour, know well that that man has not known at all. If you come across a serious man, then you can be certain that he is a pretender. Knowing brings sincerity but all seriousness disappears. Knowing brings a playfulness; knowing brings a sense of humour. The sense of humour is a must. — Rajneesh

By forcing a substantial elevation in collective aspirations, stretch goals can shift attention to possible new futures and perhaps spark increased energy in the organization. They thus can prompt exploratory learning through experimentation, innovation, broad search, or playfulness.38 There — Charles Duhigg

When we were children we were errant enough to wish to be birds for the day but there's nothing easier to lose than playfulness. — Jim Harrison

How appealing is my ferocious expression? Appealing like a cool drink on a summer day, or like kittens on a postcard?"
She smiled. He'd delivered the question in his usual bass rumble and she was surprised to realize that she hadn't thought a voice that deep and masculine could actually say words like 'kittens' and 'lovely'. Just like she hadn't thought such a big, ferocious-looking man was capable of such playfulness. 21% — Rhyll Biest

Though she liked him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning back her heart. — Jane Austen

I think entrepreneurship is our natural state
a big adult word that probably boils down to something much more obvious like playfulness. — Richard Branson

See if you can approach your own practice with a healthy combination of mindfulness, playfulness, precision, and curiosity — Cyndi Lee

Bye, sweetheart," he said gently and put the truck in gear, but he stopped me. "Wait." I looked at him and he had a little embarrassed smile on his face. "Uh ... I can't leave." That made me feel ... kinda awesome. It was the first time he needed me to release him and not the other way around. "Really?" He smiled and shook his head. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" "Yep." He laughed, his smile ... pretty sexy. "We'll see each other in just a little bit. I promise," I finished so softly, it sucked all the playfulness out of the truck and turned it into something else entirely. — Shelly Crane

Its particular interest for Ian, however, lay in its thesis about the history of the Dutch relationship to windmills, for it emphasized that these early industrial objects had originally been felt to have all the pylons' threateningly alien qualities, rather than the air of enchantment and playfulness now routinely associated with them. They had been denounced from pulpits and occasionally burnt to the ground by suspicious villagers. — Alain De Botton

Self-disciplin e is necessary, but so is playfulness, flexibility, joy. When you stop demanding perfection of yourself, your writing desk will become a spacious place. — Karen Russell

The playfulness that I talk about comes very slowly. You cannot just jump out of your seriousness which you have accumulated for lives. Now it has a force of its own. It is not a simple matter to relax; it is one of the most complex phenomena possible, because all that we are taught is tension, anxiety, anguish. Seriousness is the very core the society is built around. Playfulness is for small children, not for grown-up people. And I am teaching you to be children again, to be playful again. It is a quantum leap, a jump ... but it takes time to understand. — Rajneesh

Often touching ... Monumental Propaganda is a novel that slashes and rips ... In his translation, Andrew Bromfield deftly shifts his tone and tools as required, remaining true to Voinovich's Vonnegut-like playfulness and appreciation of the absurb. — Ken Kalfus

Seriousness is a sickness ... Existense is pure playfulness — Rajneesh

Frequently, beauty is playful like dancing sunlight, it cannot be predicted, and in the most unlikely scene or situation can suddenly emerge. This spontaneity and playfulness often subverts our self-importance and throws our plans and intentions into disarray. Without intending it, we find ourselves coming alive with a sense of celebration and delight. The pedestrian sequence of a working day breaks, a new door opens and the heart recognizes the silent majesty of the ordinary. The things we never notice, like health, friends and love, emerge from their subdued presence and stand out in their true radiance as gifts we could never have earned or achieved. Beauty — John O'Donohue

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Photography is solitary and there are lags between seeing with your eyes and seeing through the lens, and then seeing the image on your computer ... I often see things after the fact. This revelatory quality includes a sense of playfulness, because you're not sure what the consequences are going to be. — Christian Marclay

Man is always at the crossroads: each step and there is a choice, each step and you can go wrong or right. When sadness and cheerfulness confront you, always choose cheerfulness. When seriousness and playfulness confront you, always choose playfulness. And remember: we become whatsoever we choose. It is simply a question of choice. — Osho

A great fire at night always has a thrilling and exhilarating effect. This is what explains the attraction of fireworks. But in that case the artistic regularity with which the fire is presented and the complete lack of danger give an impression of lightness and playfulness like the effect of a glass of champaign. A real conflagration is a very different matter. Then the horror and a certain sense of personal danger, together with the exhilarating effect at night, produce on the spectator (though of course not in the householder whose goods are being burnt) a certain concussion of the brain and, as it were, a challenge to those destructive instincts which, alas, lie hidden in every heart, even that of the mildest and most domestic little clerk ... .This sinister sensation is almost always fascinating ... of course, the very man who enjoys the spectacle will rush into the fire himself to save a child or an old woman ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

While there was a playfulness to their caustic bards, there was also an aura of "I'll kick your ass back to the Steel Age if you so much as breathe my air the wrong way."' (Alix) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The modernist preference for high seriousness is replaced by the postmodernist preference for playfulness. — Dharanidhar Sahu

The mermaid is an archetypal image that represents a woman who is at ease in the great waters of life, the waters of emotion and sexuality. She shows us how to embrace our instinctive sexuality and sensuality so that we can affirm the essence of our feminine nature, the wisdom of our bodies, and the playfulness of our spirits. She symbolizes our connection with our deepest instinctive feelings, our wild and untamed animal nature that exists below the surface of outward personalities. She is able to respond to her mysterious sexual impulses without abandoning her more human, conscious side. What happened to the girls who dreamed of being mermaids? — Anita Johnston

O the sad frugality of the middle-income mind. O the humorless neatness of an intellectuality which buys mass-produced candlesticks and carefully puts one at each end of every philosophical mantlepiece! How far it lies from the playfulness of Him who composed such odd and needless variations on the themes of leaf and backbone, eye and nose! A thousand praises that it has only lately managed to lay its cold hand on the wines, the sauces, and the cheeses of the world! A hymn of thanksgiving that it could not reach into the depths of the sea to clamp its grim simplicities over the creatures that swim luminously in the dark! A shout of rejoicing for the fish who wears his eyeballs at the ends of long stalks, and for the jubilant laughter of the God who holds him in life with a daily bravo at the bravura of his being! — Robert Farrar Capon

I quirked a brow at him. "No kids for me. Would you really bring children into a world like this?"
Eyes alight with playfulness, he said, "No. It was just an excuse to get in your pants. — Kresley Cole

If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters. — George Santayana

Outward beauty is not enough; to be attractive a woman must use words, wit, playfulness, sweet-talk, and laughter to transcend the gifts of nature. — Petronius

One could do worse than being a swinger of birches. — Robert Frost

Organize your reality according to your strength; organize your
reality according to your playfulness; according to your dreams;
according to your joy; according to your hopes - and then you can
help those who organize their reality according to their fears. — Seth

I had never thought of Marley as any kind of model, but sitting there sipping my beer, I was aware that maybe he held the secret for a good life. Never slow down, never look back, live each day w/ adolescent verve and spunk and curiosity and playfulness. — John Grogan

Language is a bountiful gift and its usage, an elaboration of community and society, is a sacred work. Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are reborn or forgotten, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to become entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misuse of language, one must first and foremost have sworn one's total allegiance. — Muriel Barbery

Our brains, bodies, and behavior show many of the same signs of domestication that are found in our domestic animals: smaller teeth, smaller body, reduced aggression, and greater playfulness, carried on even into adulthood. — Jonathan Haidt

Millions of people have tried meditation and dropped out of it because they took it very seriously. Religion has been thought to be a very serious affair - it is not. One has to understand - at least those who are with me - that religion is a playfulness, a laughter. Take it easy; then things blossom without any tension. You are not taking it easy, you are making it difficult. — Rajneesh

The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive. — Hans Zimmer

And, if you'll investigate the history of science, my dear boy, I think you'll find that most of the really big ideas have come from intelligent playfulness. All the sober, thin-lipped concentration is really just a matter of tidying up around the fringes of the big ideas. — Kurt Vonnegut

The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously. — Rajneesh

For when cynicism becomes the default language, playfulness and invention become impossible. Cynicism scours through a culture like bleach, wiping out millions of small, seedling ideas. Cynicism means your automatic answer becomes "No." Cynicism means you presume everything will end in disappointment. And this is, ultimately, why anyone becomes cynical. Because they are scared of disappointment. Because they are scared someone will take advantage of them. Because they are fearful their innocence will be used against them - that when they run around gleefully trying to cram the whole world in their mouth, someone will try to poison them. — Caitlin Moran

The way I played music there was the way I wanted to farm, chop wood, cook, make love, raise children. Everything. A lo of it had to do with things I felt while I played. If only I could feel that sense of total absorption in what I was doing when I was doing other things. It was more than absorption, it was spontaneity, competence, a sense of grace and playfulness, of being in touch with an inexhaustible source of energy and beauty. — Mark Vonnegut

Buddhists advise us to "act always as if the future of the universe depended on what you did, while laughing at yourself for thinking that whatever you do makes any difference." This serious playfulness makes it possible to be both engaged and carefree at the same time. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Last year, [Pope Francis] was asked about his secret to happiness. He said slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don't proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don't hold on to negative feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy art, books and playfulness. — Timothy Egan

When the playful me shows up, I am ready to be a serious learner ... a culture of playfulness is closely related to the capacity to learn. — Rosemary Sutcliff