James Redfield Quotes

Life is half spent before we know what it is.

Although becoming a singer was my plan A after first hearing Whitney Houston when I was 17, I started off with plan B by going to the teacher-training college that my dad went to. It was a slow coming of age.

I never had the chance to consider what or how I wanted to be.

Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.

I believe that you are not stuck with a pre-destiny. I believe that there is ways to see all these things that are laid down in front of you and where you belong and to smack yourself in the face when you realize that you've strayed off your path and get back to where your path is.

Especially on unexpected journeys, you have time; you can figure certain deeper things out, like who you are and what you want. That's why I enjoy journeys.

If you have a sense of your place in the world, that's the best preparation for anything.

The roles I think about and can't stop thinking about - on the subway, when I'm riding my bike, when I'm running - are the things I connect to.

As I get older, I have a clearer sense of what's important to me.

I think I was on this very straightforward escalator - grammar school, high school, college, get a job on Wall Street, kind of everything leads to the next thing. But at what point do you get to step back and say, 'I'd like to take a broader view of my time on this planet?'

I am always interested in that relationship between outer reality and inner desire, and I think it is important to pay attention to the inner voice because it is the only way to discover your mission in life and the only way to develop the strength to break with whatever familial or cultural norms are preventing you from fulfilling your destiny.

Everyone that's come into my life, everything that has happened, has been a part of the plan. It's not even about being in the industry or becoming more popular; it's just about growing and outgrowing some people.

Nobody can tell you what your destiny is.

I was going to Hartford High School and when the theater bug hit, it hit hard and it saved my life. It gave me focus, direction and purpose.

The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

To grow up is to find the small part you are playing in the extraordinary drama written by somebody else.

Life is a life-long assignment that must be constantly analyzed, clarified, figured out, and responded to appropriately.

The real test of a man is not when he plays the role that he wants for himself but when he plays the role destiny has for him.

I grew up in a normal family. I have sweet parents, who are still married... But my life is so different from how I thought it would be.

Being a dad has made me more aware of myself. I can see all of my virtues and flaws. They become glaringly clear when my daughter communicates with me in the same ways that I communicate with her. I can really tell where and when I went wrong.

What I know for sure: Often we don't even realize who we're meant to be because we're so busy trying to live out someone else's ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.

I think the terminology I would use is 'a continuous process of reflection'. I've always thought of only two questions that have mattered to me personally. One is what is really needed in the world and the second is what's really important to me and how these two intersect. It's always been a reflective process - spiraling around these two poles.

The truth is, aging can be your realest opportunity to decide how best to live - and the best incentive for getting you to do just that.

If you have no agenda of your own, life will work according to its agenda. Your personal agenda is taking you further and further away from that.

I now see what the really important things in life are and they don't relate to what I do for a living.