Anna Quindlen Quotes

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

Extraordinary things happen in solitude.

I'm in a period of growth and expansion. I'm taking long, hard looks at the world and what's happening in it, analyzing and thinking. I'm trying to become acquainted with the universe - with the part of it I occupy - and trying to settle, for myself, what my relationship with it is.

Inspiration comes to us slowly and quietly . prime it with a little solitude.

Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

If you find yourself running away from something and then suddenly you're isolated in a vacuum, then you have to deal with all the inherent truths and learning things about yourself and the people that are around you.

For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.

So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God, without knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified themselves.

I will work on myself, since the work on myself is going to be the highest thing I can do for it all, since I understand that as man up-levels his own consciousness, he sees more creative solutions to the problems that he's confronting.

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world

Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet.

For discovering one's true inner nature, I think one should try to take out some time, with quiet and relaxation, to think more inwardly and to investigate the inner world. That may help.

If we are to flourish as creative beings, if we are to grow into wholeness, we must bloom wherever we are planted.

Self-awareness is a key to self-mastery

They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures - and the best of them lead us not only outward in space, but inward as well.

I feel like I have re-created myself on every album. I try to do that. It's like playing a game with yourself, trying to compete with yourself.

Never did I think so much, exist so much, be myself so much as in the journeys I have made alone and on foot. Walking has something about it which animates and enlivens my ideas. I can hardly think while I am still; my body must be in motion to move my mind.

When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are tendered conscious.

It's kind of ridiculous that I find inspiration in just getting away from everything. But when you've gone through it, you realize that it's the enemy. It's a distraction from what you're really doing. You've got to keep moving. Like a shark.

The real preparation for education is a study of one's self. The training of the teacher...is something far more than a learning of ideas. It includes the training of character; it is a preparation of the spirit.

Anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life.