William Least Heat-Moon Quotes

Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concretic layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society...may unexpectedly come forth...to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!...Such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn...Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

All arts lie in man, though not all are apparent. Awakening brings them out. To be taught is nothing; everything is in man waiting to be awakened.

The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.

All human beings have the ability to transform like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon and taking to the sky.

Today is the day to break free from the prison of the person you know yourself to be and step into a self you have yet to know. Will it be comfortable? No, but do it anyway.

We all hope for breakthrough rebirth moments.

Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.

I believe we are most beautiful when we are constantly shedding our old selves and moving into new light.

We all want to be renewed, don't we?

You must change your life.

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

To honor life, we must be willing to grow through what we don't know yet, and outgrow what we know no longer fits us. We must be willing to give in to the process, moment by moment, realizing a new plot may be unfolding.

I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.

In meditation, once you are gone in, you are gone in. Then, even when you resurrect you are a totally different person. The old personality is nowhere to be found. You have to start your life again from abc. You have to learn everything with fresh eyes, with a totally new heart. That's why meditation creates fear.

When faced with a loss, it is no use trying to recover what has gone. On the other hand, a great space has been opened up in your life - there it lies, empty, waiting to be filled with something new. At the moment of one's loss, contradictory as this might seem, one is being given a large slice of freedom.

The shell must break before the bird can fly.

Advent creates people, new people.

You see everything depends upon the psychological headquarters from which we live. 'Where am I living from?' Ask yourself that question. If you don't like your headquarters, you can move any time you like. Break away. Don't tell anyone about it. Others will either smile tolerantly or mouth sanctimonious babble. Make your escape plans in secret. Never mind if you lose certain friends, you will find others who also have dared. They will be ten-thousand times more valuable to you.

The truth is that the man I am was born in those moments, as I stood near the flood sticks with my face lifted to the chrismal rain. Shantaram. The better man that, slowly, and much too late, I began to be.

Once you reach a certain age, you're either slowly dying or slowly being reborn. I want to choose the latter.

The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.

Whoever has done harmful actions but later covers them up with good is like the moon which, freed from clouds, lights up the world.

There are only two types of change: Something new comes into your life, or something new comes out of you.

He could not change the man he had been, but these hands would make him the man he could be

After love, no one is what they were before.