Ottessa Moshfegh Quotes

In that I found being able to talk to my family about my feelings, praying for strength and realizing that our lives have a deep purpose and the journey of our lives is to find out what that is and express it, was the only way I could have gotten through it.

You take your problems to a god, but what you really need is for the god to take you to the inside of you.

When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.'

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.

The truth is we're all searching. We're all looking for guidance, for mentors, and I'm by no means someone to follow.

Everyone should go inward, get curious about themselves, and investigate their shadows. It's one of the most important gifts we can give humanity. It's one of our most vital causes.

Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.

When you are in high school, you don't give much thought to what you can't do. For most people, that gets learned later, and for still fewer, gets unlearned for the rest of life.

There is a door we all want to walk through and writing can help you find it and open it.

For some people, life is the process of knocking through walls to get out. For others, it is the building of walls.

When you wonder about the mystery of yourself, look to Christ, who gives you the meaning of life. When you wonder what it means to be a mature person, look to Christ, who is the fulfillness of humanity. And when you wonder about your role in the future of the world look to Christ.

Our lives are our mythic journeys, and our happy endings are still to be won.

I was lucky. I had some really good people that were just here there and wherever who would come into my life that I felt would answer questions. I mean, I had some very powerful questions myself for what this earth was all about.

When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. Most of our mainline Christian denominations, in my opinion, don't do the first or second halves very well. We don't really give people a good container, we give them a bunch of legalisms.

I'm all over the place, up and down, scattered, withdrawing, trying to find some elusive sense of serenity." The world can't give that serenity. The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts." I hate that." I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away.

Sometimes my life has been Odyssean - landing on strange islands of consciousness and reality and meeting very curious monsters who turn out to be very great teachers. Sometimes my life has been a quest for a grail of knowledge and education. Like Parsifal, my life has been a quest to pierce the veil, stumbling along but eventually finding it.

Sometimes life is so crazy, you have to go through something to be able to find out what you're supposed to talk about next, and I think that's what happened to me.

There's a lot of fear connected with the inner journey because it penetrates our illusions. Taking the inner journey will lead you into some very shadowy places. You're going to learn things about yourself that you'll wish you didn't know. There are monsters in there-monsters you can't control-but trying to keep them hidden will only give them greater power.

I always knew that I could go deep. How deep? I don't know. But it always seems that with each character I take on, I'm challenged to go deeper than the last time, and then again deeper than the last time. This is the deepest I've ever been asked to dive. And to see how deep I actually went for this, and that I wasn't afraid to go there in order to give Tyler exactly what he envisioned for the character, which was pretty deep, that's what I discovered about myself.

When you're looking so hard to get on your path, you're putting up resistance that keeps you from finding it.

A guru is not a crutch, he is a bridge.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

I myself am still learning how to be me and that's OK. It can take a really long time to become the person you really want to be. Be who you are. It's the greatest gift we can give to ourselves, our community and our world.

Instructions For Wayfarers They will declare: Every journey has been taken. You shall respond: I have not been to see myself. They will insist: Everything has been spoken. You shall reply: I have not had my say. They will tell you: Everything has been done. You shall reply: My way is not complete. You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard. Fear not. You are the gate - you, the gatekeeper. And you shall go through and on . . . —Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis, THIRD WISH

Sometimes a man imagines that he will lose himself if he gives himself, and keep himself if he hides himself. But the contrary takes place with terrible exactitude.