Walter Murch Quotes

In our world, we have this huge focus on vicarious living - politicians, movie stars, athletes, coaches, all these people. What our research has shown very clearly is that people who are really happier and have more meaningful lives are people that focus on living their own lives.

I think when you live your destiny, you allow yourself to get in touch with your inner essence. What's difficult in life is the economic and social requirements that distract us from bringing forth our true passion.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive... To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

50 years: here's a time when you have to separate yourself from what other people expect of you, and do what you love. Because if you find yourself 50 years old and you aren't doing what you love, then what's the point?

A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back on his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in infancy.

Maybe I had a 'secret identity,' but then when you think about it, don't we all? A part of ourselves very few people ever get to see. The part we think of as 'me.' The part that deals with the big stuff. Makes the real choices. The part everything else is a reflection of.

People think, 'Oh my goodness! I have to do something really big.' You don't. Do what you love. There's a great quote from a poet I use all the time: 'Instead of asking what the world needs, ask yourself what you love,' because what the world needs is more people doing what they love.

I think it's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's realistic, and it's true to the me that has been developing over the years. I like first-person music.

William H. Macy has said, and I don't think I can quote him verbatim, but he's said many times before to not buy into the hype, the Hollywood appeal. To find yourself as a person, as a family man, to find your own happiness, and not to allow your ego to get in the way of your work.

I think if you do what's in your heart - Joseph Campbell always says you have to follow your bliss, and if you do, doors open where you didn't even realize there were doors.

Unlock your natural drives by doing what you enjoy.

You and I were created by God to be so much more than normal…Following the crowd is not a winning approach to life. In the end it’s a loser’s game, because we never become who God created us to be by trying to be like everybody else.

I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.

Follow Your Bliss. Not someone else’s idea of your bliss. Not what you think should be your bliss. Not what you think would impress the crowd or appease the family. Your BLISS. What truly gets you giddy.

I had been living the life that society tends to dictate for women of a certain age. You marry the person who asks you, even though he may or may not be the best one for you. Around the time that I got divorced, I had an epiphany that there is no blue ribbon or gold medal for living someone else's life, for fulfilling someone else's dreams. It's doesn't make you happy. You just end up with a life that's not yours.

Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already posses.

As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.

A man forced to spend his life without ever having the right, without ever finding the time, to shut himself up all alone, no matter where, to think, to reflect, to work, to dream? Ah! my dear boy, a key, the key of a door which one can lock this is happiness, mark you, the only happiness!

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

The goal of becoming more consistent with your core authentic self is a much stronger motivator than "I need to lose 30 pounds."

I don't understand why I do what I do. I don't understand why I act anymore. But I do know that I love it, and that I find it really interesting and satisfying to enter into other worlds and explore different ways of thinking.

Sometimes having a good time can be the outward evidence of a deep re-thinking.

"You're All That" goes back to really building a life from the core of who you're. And all of those things are layers. That's just your authentic life.

I think every year I become happier because I become more comfident and more comfortable in my own skin.

After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is. And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the 'disguise' of a false self, the ego, whom we tend to worship in place of God.