Barbara Pym Quotes

Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves (for the time being only superficially) and is ready to release what lies deeper. When I am willfully alone, a slight ordering of my interior begins to take place and I need nothing more.

In my book, I was trying to get into my own soul.

Meditation is a good starting point, or even a little bit of contemplative reflection, asking questions like: Who am I without my name or form? What is my purpose if there is one? What do I want out of my life? What am I grateful for? Just a little bit of reflection like that starts you on the journey.

Sometimes when we awaken from the bad dream of disowning ourselves, we think that the sojourn to self-discovery is a new one. But it is an ancient quest.

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.

I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths where your life wells forth.

Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make acquaintance with the Friend.

There I am, chain-smoking and watching YouTube videos in my bedroom at 6 A.M. when a spoken-word video comes on the screen. I knew I had to do it: that it was another part of me that needed to be explored.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

If I can write it, I can cope. And I've been writing many books, but in every book, I try to explore something in my own soul that I need to solve, I need to understand.

The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.

I'm always soul searching on a spiritual level.

I looked into that empty bottle and I saw myself.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

In my personal life, I am very contemplative.

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

It's very important for people to know what gives them meaning. But it's hard for people to figure out if you're not connecting with yourself and taking the time to just be introspective and daydream.

In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth... Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected... For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of 'eco-system' that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.

In a series of wonderful essays, Evan Handler gives himself up to us - warts and all. To our amusement and bemusement we share in his emotional growth as he struggles to mature. I not only laughed along with him but felt that I too had grown a little along the way. Who could ask for more?

Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself.

We are reaching deep within ourselves to adjust the master knob.

As our thought is opened and we behold the image of eternity within ourselves, we are changed by this image into a newness of life.

Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.