Pema Chodron Quotes

The trick about the theater is at the end of the day you cannot take any of it personally.

You can't identify 100% with your character.

In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.

I mean, he was something that happened to me, you know? But before he was this minor figure in the drama of my life he was - you know, the central figure in the drama of his own life.

I don't think I have a split personality. I believe the same person I am on the field is the same person I am at home - passionate about everything I do, whether it's reading a Bible or just hanging out with my wife.

I don't take anything personally. I am a secondary character in other people's stories. I know that whatever people say about me is just a projection of their image of me. It has nothing to do with me.

As a game-show host, what I'm thinking and what I'm experiencing doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't matter. So there's a flattened reality to it. It's fun to do. But it's certainly not myself in totality - or even maybe a little bit.

Remind yourself: you are not your thoughts or feelings

When you reflect, you are able to put an experience into perspective... reflective thinking enables you to distance yourself from the intense emotions of particularly good or bad experiences and see them with fresh eyes.

I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes you're just too close to it.

You know, you should start to be in plays and things like that. Write some scripts. If you're an artist and you truly don't believe what you're spittin' then you need to really seriously be an actor then.

When you are younger, you pretend to believe, but you are proving it to everyone and to yourself. The change comes when you know you're funny on the inside. Then you don't have to prove it to anybody else anymore. That's when you become different and that's when you evolved onto a completely different level, because you know who you are.

Opera is a musical scenery, a musical atmosphere in which the characters move and talk.

Don't lose who you are in the blur of the stars Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing

The deeper reality is that I’m not sure if what I do is real. I usually believe that I’m certain about how I feel, but that seems naive. How do we know how we feel?…There is almost certainly a constructed schism between (a) how I feel, and (b) how I think I feel. There’s probably a third level, too—how I want to think I feel.

He who recites dramatic works makes discoveries about his own character.

You are who you are. I know you. You believe that? "Yea but--" "You're Eve Dallas. You're the love of my life. My heart and Soul. You're a cop, mind and bone. You're a woman of strength and resilience. Stubborn, hardheaded, occassionally mean as a badger, and more generous that you'll admit.

Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.

What we know matters but who we are matters more.

If you can tell the world who you are and what you believe without breaking stride or hesitating, you are happy with yourself.

Detachment doesn't mean I'm trying less hard. It just means that fears and emotions that used to torment and paralyze me no longer have the same power over me. Getting to this point hasn't always been easy; it took me years to really learn to silence my mind. But as you move through your career and your life, you will have to learn that if you're not what you do, then what you do has no business keeping you entertained at night.

I happen to believe the world will change only when we change ourselves. And that starts with finding ourselves: learning to quiet the clamor in our minds and the voices of everyone around us and move toward what feels right – toward the things we know, for reasons we can’t explain, that we’re mean to do, the things that makes us feel alive.

I love the truth. Whether it's painful or wonderful, it always widens my perspective and changes me. It helps move me forward.

The secret to feeling attractive, and to being attractive, is the confidence that comes from knowing who you are and what you believe in.

And to the degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others.