Trying To Become Quotes & Sayings

I am far more interested in being a beginner than in trying to become an expert. Life is difficult and complicated for everyone - but it's very, very short. — Alastair Humphreys

If you worry about what everyone is trying to do, you become a spectator and not a player. — Brent Weeks

I've been streaky throughout my career, but I've been trying to become a more consistent hitter. — Travis Hafner

We live in a world where people are so busy trying to find someone that's "good enough" for them, that they have failed to stop and ask themselves if they are in fact good enough for other people! This is the result of a feeling of false entitlement that has been instilled in the minds of people today. "Everyone" deserves "the best" from the "Universe" however, nobody is teaching anybody to stop and try to become the best for their own selves and for other people. When everybody thinks they are the best, everybody falls short of the best that they can actually be. — C. JoyBell C.

Sometimes I think God is trying to test me, both now and in the future. I'll have to become a good person on my own, without anyone to serve as a model or advise me, but it'll make me stronger in the end. — Anne Frank

In the ideology of the new Silicon Valley, work was for the owned. Play was for the owners. There was a fundamental capitalism at work: While they abhorred the idea of being a wage slave, the young men of Silicon Valley were not trying to tear down the capitalist system. They were trying to become its new masters. — Katherine Losse

For a bill to become law, it truly has to be the will of the people, and for a president to stop the will of the people and stop what you're trying to do in your state is not the role of Washington. — Nikki Haley

I think all these great comforts that come from the human condition of trying to make things easier on ourselves also have these pitfalls, where things become so easy that we forget how enjoyable building a fence can be. — Nick Offerman

Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often, innovators with good, safe, jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by walking away from company-backed medical insurance. — Eric Ries

I coveted you. I had no right to want you
but I reached out and took you anyway. And now look what's become of you! Trying to seduce a vampire. — Stephenie Meyer

Prayer is less about trying to get God to do something we want God to do and more about getting ourselves to do what God wants us to do and to become who God wants us to become. — Shane Claiborne

The enormous influence of novelty
the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment
is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous. — John Ruskin

Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: ... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Here, in their midst, George feels a sort of vertigo. Oh God, what will become of them all? What chance have they? Ought I to yell out to them, right now, here, that it's hopeless? But George knows he can't do that. Because, absurdly, inadequately, in spite of himself, almost, he is a representative of the hope. And the hope is not false. No. It's just that George is like a man trying to sell a real diamond for a nickel, on the street. The diamond is protected from all but the tiniest few, because the great hurrying majority can never stop to dare to believe that it could conceivably be real. — Christopher Isherwood

I've been making movies for a long time. The Japanese way of making movies has become second nature to me. To get away from that, I really try to surround myself with younger staff and approach making movies not like a veteran of the industry but always as a beginner and a rookie. — Takashi Miike

I never knew how good it is to be unknown until now. The last time I was unknown I was too busy trying to become known to realize the advantages of obscurity. — Alec Guinness

I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.' — Tim O'Brien

You were right when you said I was holding onto April's apron strings even though she was trying to cut them. I've spent so long relying on her that it's sort of become a habit. It's time I relied on myself for a bit and took control of my life. — Nicola Sinclair

It gave me a second chance. I'd like everybody to have a second chance if they need it, so I'm trying to let people know how important it is to become an organ donor. — Mickey Mantle

I'm not approachable by someone who says, "Let's try some drugs," or something like that. I'm absolutely close-minded about that kind of thing. But I'm wide open to anyone who says, "I've been wondering why we're here and where we're going, and I've got a few answers, but I wondered if anything ever happened to you that suggests ... " Then they have me, and I become a chatterbox and can just talk away literally for days. — Richard Bach

We're not trying to raise good kids. We're trying to raise kids who become great adults. That's a very different thing. We all know parents who had kids that when they turned 18 left the house and went nuts. — Andy Andrews

In order to become a master, you need to emulate. If you're going to be as big as Warhol has become in art, then you have to have younger generations who are exploring your work and trying to understand it like a language. — Mike Bidlo

I think US/UK genre has become more open to "diverse" writers and writing; there's a genuine interest in reading work from countries outside the US/UK and hearing voices that have been historically shut out, but at the same time, people are quite lazy. That sounds harsh, but I include myself in it - your tastes are shaped by what you've read and watched before, and it takes a little effort to understand stories that use a different voice, that follow different storytelling conventions, that are trying to subvert the dominant paradigm. There's a quite large group of people who are "yay diversity" in theory, but I think the number of people who have then said to themselves, "OK, if I'm committed to this, I need to start reading outside my comfort zone and making an effort" is maybe a little smaller. — Zen Cho

None of us is perfect, but the point of our writing is to try to become better, to learn something that we may not have already realized, about ourselves, about the world we inhabit. — Thomas L. Dumm

If you don't try to fly and so break yourself apart, you will be broken open by death, when it's too late for all you could become. — Rumi

Try to force celibacy upon yourself and your dreams will become sexual, they will have a quality of sexuality. — Rajneesh

It's a myth that people change. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on therapy trying to address their issues, but I know very few people who have ever made any significant changes. You are who you are. You can bemoan it, you can try to become a different person, or you can celebrate yourself. I choose to do the latter — Dennis Hof

People are always waiting around for that magical person who'll walk into their life and fix them, who'll offer up some vital piece they've been missing and make them complete. They spend years trying to fit their broken edges against another person's and call themselves whole and healed. The only problem with this, of course, is that expecting anyone else to fix you is an unequivocal disaster.

You can't wait for a man to come around and put you back together. You have to put yourself back together first, and become the kind of woman who deserves a good man. — Julie Johnson

I think the media has become incredibly corrupt. We used to have a profound tradition of investigative journalism in the United States. Some journalists were real heroes, such as Bob Woodward who helped uncover the Watergate scandal. But today he is leading the opposite charge, trying to bring down the careers of people and score easy victories. In other words, those who used to bust the status quo have now become the status quo. — Marianne Williamson

When you defend, try not to worry or become upset. Keep your cool and trust your position - it's all you've got. — Pal Benko

There may be as many people taking pictures as there are brides and grooms. One of them for every one of us. Clickety-click. The thought makes the couples a little giddy. They feel that space is contagious. They are here but also there, already in albums and slide projectors, filling picture frames with their microcosmic bodies, the minikin selves they are trying to become. — Don DeLillo

In being a loving son, I suppose I was trying to become a loved son. — Marlon Brando

Certainly one must try everything, but only to become more certain what God's way is. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When you try to help people become a better person, you're going to have to find out what's really going in their world. — Ray Lewis

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God. — Thomas C. Oden

Questioner: How can we become integrated without conflict? KRISHNAMURTI: Why do you object to conflict? You all seem to think conflict is a dreadful thing. At present you and I are in conflict, are we not? I am trying to tell you something, and you don't understand; so there is a sense of friction, conflict. And what is wrong with friction, conflict, — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Working in theoretical systems can take away the juice. It can also be very beautiful, but when you're trying to satisfy a theoretical principle rather than a sonic reality, then it can become dry. — Pauline Oliveros

Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn't it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God? Yes. But the poor pig does not think so at the time. Which state is my individuality? When I was a baby sprawling on the floor trying to swallow my thumb? Was that the individuality I should be sorry to lose? Fifty years hence I shall look upon this present state and laugh, just as I now look upon the baby state. Which of these individualities shall I keep? — Swami Vivekananda

One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people - I categorize them as life's losers - who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I'm concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn't be fighting me, they'd be doing something constructive themselves. — Donald J. Trump

People thank God when God no longer sits on the throne. The angels descend down to deliver miracles because they are trying to maintain the face of God. In the end, you must place your hopes and prayers with the angels. It has become quite sad in Heaven without its puppet master. — Lionel Suggs

Trying to accumulate wealth by the sweat of your brow and hard labor is one way to become the richest man in the graveyard. You do not have to strive or slave hard. — Joseph Murphy

To become a great leader, you have to keep trying. — Paul King

Trying to hold onto any relationship as it was, keeps you from the joyous adventure of what it can become. — Esther Hicks

A lot of my video work is super lo-fi on purpose. I'm not trying to become technically super proficient. The only thing I'm interested in becoming technically proficient on is my alto saxophone. — Matana Roberts

I've spent years trying to block out how you look. And sound. And feel. And before this show, I'd gotten pretty good at it. But now, here you are, in front of me every day, and it blows my mind that a single touch from you still has the power to ruin me. And whenever it happens, I forget about the choices I've made, and the circus my life's become, and I want you. Consequences be damned. — Leisa Rayven

Anyone who made it through the screening and the training required to become an Arkie" - which doesn't include you, Julia - "will understand exactly what we are trying to do from an orbital mechanics standpoint. — Neal Stephenson

Most immigrants agree that at some point, we become permanent foreigners, belonging neither here nor there. Many tomes have been written trying to describe this feeling of floating between worlds but never fully landing. Artists, using every known medium from words to film to Popsicle sticks, have attempted to encapsulate the struggle of trying to hang on to the solid ground of our mother culture and realizing that we are merely in a pond balancing on a lily pad with a big kid about to belly-flop right in. If and when we fall into this pond, will we be singularly American or will we hyphenate? Can we hold on to anything or does our past just end up at the bottom of the pond, waiting to be discovered by future generations? — Firoozeh Dumas

For sure we live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we're not young and glowing and "hot," we don't matter. But I refuse to buy into such a distorted view of reality. And I would never lie about or deny my age. To do so is to contribute to a sickness pervading our society - the sickness of wanting to be what you're not. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into the myth that you can be what you once were. The way to your best life isn't denial. It's owning every moment and staking a claim to the here and now. You're not the same woman you were a decade ago; if you're lucky, you're not the same woman you were last year. The whole point of aging, as I see it, is change. If we let them, our experiences can keep teaching us about ourselves. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I'm grateful for every age I'm blessed to become. — Oprah Winfrey

Never stop trying to impress your partner. If you can both stay in that place, when you really want to show the best of yourselves to each other, relationships can become such a powerful team. — Matthew Hussey

Apparently God makes us all different. Some of us are happy to respond to His individual touch on our lives by remaining individuals, and others of us are intimidated or frightened into trying to become like each other so that we have company, so that we don't feel so lonely. — Larry Norman

If that had indeed been ecstasy, I would have to agree. I would also have to say that either we had taken far too much, or it was a very powerful drug. I could nearly blush myself when I remembered what I had said and done. Trying to become a little more human was one thing - but this had been far over the edge into the sludge of dumb, yammer-headed personhood. Perhaps the stuff should be called excess-tasy. In retrospect, I was very glad there was a drug to blame. I did not like to think of myself as behaving like a cartoon. — Jeff Lindsay

I want to keep developing. I want to become relaxed in my own work and go deeper. Just growing and studying and trying new things and hopefully having professional access to work that's good and interesting. I don't want to be on the treadmill of artificiality. — Gale Harold

My interest, perhaps, came out of the trauma of being a young immigrant in this country and constantly feeling my "resident alien" status. I remember trying to learn English on kindergarten playgrounds. I tried hard to be a convincing American but it was a losing battle. I was labeled weird and that tag never left me - all through high school, I was always the oddball. It was not always an easy path - I just had to tell myself that one day, being on the periphery would become an asset (and I think it finally has, as a creative adult). — Porochista Khakpour

Honestly, I am not trying to discourage anyone from becoming an actress, but if you want to become one be prepared to face everything that comes - along with it. — Amber Tamblyn

That was when I left her and went outside to talk to Charles. I knew I would dislike talking to Charles, but it was almost too late to ask him politely and I thought I should ask him once. Even the garden had become a strange landscape with Charles' figure in it; I could see him standing under the apple trees and the trees were crooked and shortened beside him. I came out the kitchen door and walked slowly toward him. I was trying to think charitably of him, since I would never be able to speak kindly until I did, but whenever I thought of his big white face grinning at me across the table or watching me whenever I moved I wanted to beat at him until he went away, I wanted to stamp on him after he was dead, and see him lying dead on the grass. So I made my mind charitable toward Charles and came up to him slowly. — Shirley Jackson

The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest. — Pema Chodron

The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.
All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me. — Leslie Feinberg

Invitations not obligations: Our expectations of other people can be a big drain on our emotions. When we ask someone to do something, or, worse, have a belief that someone should do something and insist that he or she comply, it places a great stress on us. And the other person, noting our anxiety and insistence that they conform to our expectations, may actually become less inclined to respond as we like.
Instead, consider everything you want someone else to do to be an invitation that the other person may or may not choose to accept. Of course, if you are an employer or a parent who is trying to ensure a child's safety, you must have parameters and ground rules. Everyone else, however, should be released from the obligation of doing, being, living, and acting as you feel they should. — Will Bowen

To succeed in the business of the future we have to become the very people we are trying to reach — Brian Solis

I know that I'm definitely not a big big snob, and I know that at the times that I am a diva I know I'm being a diva. It's kind of annoying to know that you are. Because it's a person I do not want to be. So I'm trying my best not to become a jerk. — Jackie Evancho

One day I'll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer. — Benjamin Britten

Sometimes I think that's where most of us are. Fighting off the crazy as best we can. Trying to become something better than we were. It's that second bit that's important. — Jim Butcher

That morning I realized I would probably spend the rest of my professional life trying to unravel the mysteries of trauma. How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past? What happens in people's minds and brains that keeps them frozen, trapped in a place they desperately wish to escape? Why — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Majority of folks out there are trying to make a difference. Don't just make a difference; become the difference! — Ogwo David Emenike

The nationalism of a small nation can, with treacherous ease, become detached from its roots in what is noble and human. It then become pitiful, making the nation appear smaller rather than greater. It is the same with nations as with individuals; while trying to draw attention to the inadequacies of others, people all too often reveal their own. — Vasily Grossman

Writing has taught me a lot - though far from everything - about writing, so as time has passed, it has become more pleasurable if not easier. I've done other things in life, but writing is by a factor of 10 the most difficult among them. And, of course, you never achieve what you set out to achieve, so you must keep on trying to do better. — Charles McCarry

Timing is so important! If you are going to be successful in dance, you must be able to respond to rhythm and timing. It's the same in the Spirit. People who don't understand God's timing can become spiritually spastic, trying to make the right things happen at the wrong time. They don't get His rhythm - and everyone can tell they are out of step. They birth things prematurely, threatening the very lives of their God-given dreams. — T.D. Jakes

Without living, there will be no learning. Without learning, there will be no growth. Without growth, there will be no change. The only way you learn is by trying. You may make mistakes but you have to remember that doing so will lead to change. Be willing to learn from experiences, grow and live to become better not bitter. — Kemi Sogunle

Every time I step onto the field, whether people like it or not, I'm not trying to play dirty - I'm just playing tough. And I'm trying to earn my spot on the team. I'm trying to earn a starting spot. I'm trying to become a complete midfielder who attacks, who defends. So that's the mindset. — Carli Lloyd

Days passed until they threatened to make a week, and Jimmy could glimpse how weeks might eventually become months. Outside the steel door in the upper room, the men outside were trying to get in. On the radio, they yelled and argued. Jimmy listened sometimes, but all they talked about were the dead and dying and forbidden things, like the great outside. — Hugh Howey

I'm not trying to hide my past," he said in earnest. "I've learned a lot from it. It's made me who I am today, and I'm proud of who I've become. — Amber Lynn Natusch

Society tried to teach me that children are by nature selfish, out-of-control, and demanding, that their goal is power and that they are always trying to see how much they can get away with, that you can't let children manipulate you or become too dependant, and that disobedience equals disrespect. As a mother, I have come to believe strongly that my child's primary goals are having his needs met, feeling connected to others, and feeling self-worth. His misbehavior is an attempt to get a need met or to feel significance and connection, done in an appropriate way ... my job as a parent is to help my child identify and meet those needs in appropriate ways. - Lisa S. — Hilary Flower

I was a waitress years ago when I was first trying to become an actress, waiting tables in New York City. — Kim Dickens

If you can do this you are beginning to get what you are trying for, which is to make something that will become a part of the reader's experience and a part of his memory. — Ernest Hemingway,

Expect people to be better than they are; it helps them to become better. But don't be disappointed when they are not; it helps them to keep trying. — Mary Browne

I just want to do musicals. it's hard enough just to do musicals. No matter how hard I try, I think it's only getting harder. Even If I try harder, there are problems that I just can't deal with. I don't know why it's become like this. — Cheon Eunbi

When you sit on something trying to preserve it, you die and become sterile. — Garth Brooks

Someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. — Paul Graham

The time to hesitate is through no time to wallowin the mire Try now we can only lose and our love become a funeral pyre — Jim Morrison

Open your mind a little, don't believe everything you hear, see or read, the world is so caught up in trying to avoid the topics that matter that you'll lose yourself trying to become like it. — Nikki Rowe

Caught up in our own busyness, frantically running from one crisis to the next in a cycle that looks less like loving the Messiah and more like trying to become one. — Phileena Heuertz And Darren Prince

Imagine Michael Jackson trying to play basketball or Michael Jordan trying to become a musician. They might not have been so successful if they would have chosen to do so. Regardless — Harshajyoti Das

You can play. You can play. You can play! Livia leaned against the wall, her aches and pains and shivering chill melting away now that Blake's playing had become something beautiful. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth, as if to drink the music. She couldn't imagine how he created it - it sounded as if three people must be playing. She heard bells, then the notes sounded like voices. So clearly the music sang to her: Blake loves Livia. Blake loves Livia. She stretched her arms out and dug her fingers into the rough, scratchy brick, trying to hug him from the outside of the church. She wiped tears from her cheeks. She wanted to run inside and see him creating. She wanted to see his strong arms and intuitive fingers crafting the notes. Blake's sounds enchanted her. — Debra Anastasia

Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip." "No," I said. Panic rolled in, pulled me under. He nodded. "So I went in for a PET scan." He stopped. He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth. Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile. He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver, everywhere. — John Green

I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer. — Max Weinberg

an idealist is a hypocrite, because he is always trying to become what he is not, instead of being and understanding what he is. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

We need to encourage members of this next generation to become all that they can become, not try to force them to become what we want them to become ... You and I can't even begin to dream the dreams this next generation is going to dream, or answer the questions that will be put to them. — Barbara Coloroso

You have games on there?" he asks.
"Yeah," I answer for her. "She's become a checkers fanatic. Shelley, show him how it works."
While Shelley slowly taps the screen with her knuckles, Alex watches, seemingly fascinated.
When the checkers screen comes up, Shelley nudges Alex's hand.
"You go first," he says.
She shakes her head.
"She wants you to go first," I tell him.
"Cool." He taps the screen.
I watch, getting all mushy inside, as this tough guy plays quietly with my big sister.
"Do you mind if I make a snack for her?" I say, desperate to leave the room.
"Nah, go ahead," he says, his concentration on the game.
"You don't have to let her win," I say before leaving. "She can hold her own in checkers."
"Uh, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am tryin' to win," Alex says. He has a genuine grin on his face, without trying to act cocky or cool. — Simone Elkeles

Yet behind all of the populist hot air, and the big shot persona, is a man who is very cunning. As a real estate mogul worth billions, a man like Donald Trump knows how to relate to an audience better than a politician. He has to as each transaction he is working on can increase his personal wealth. Moreover, he doesn't have the time to make the connections while trying to close a deal that an average politician does. He has to, as a salesman, become expert at being a "five minute friend". Every move has to count in building a credible connection that will get him to, and beyond, the closing table. — Robert Montgomerie

I know I haven't always done things the right way. I'm just trying to reflect on how to make myself better, how to become a better man, a better father, a better person, a better artist. — Nayvadius Cash

My only job has been to say that you have to, try different things and let yourself become a different person, have experiences. — Tavi Gevinson

When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself
that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control (p.82-83) — Geneen Roth

May Sarton said, "the deeper you go, the more universal you become." It's a reminder to me that those things I try to convince myself I don't need to admit are usually those things I need the most to say. Speaking the truth, in its most poignant details, is liberating and gives those around us the freedom to be real. — Sabrina Ward Harrison

When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece.
Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.
This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. — John Wooden

It's funny because when you do become successful, you're forced to look backwards and try to crawl back into the womb where you first started to create. — Jack White

Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. — Rajneesh

Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. — J.M. Barrie

There is nothing the Church can do except try to educate people to become good consumers. — Pope Francis

As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself. — Adyashanti

This wish to satisfy someone greater than the Self, to be found acceptable, to belong at last, is a struggle familiar to many psychotherapy patients. In their lives they waste themselves on wondering how they are doing, on trying to figure out the expectations of others so that they can become someone in the eyes of others. They try to be practical, to be reasonable, to figure it all out in their heads. It is as though if only they could get the words straight in their heads, if only they could find the correct formula, then everything else in their lives would be magically straightened out. They are sure there is a right way to do things, though they have not yet found it. Someone in authority must know ... It is as thought if it were discovered that two and two really did not equal four (but five), then at that moment all over the world every machine would stop operating, all of the lights would go out. (110) — Sheldon B. Kopp