Quotes about Personal Growth

I want to be a well-rounded human being with none of these knotty lumps of rage and guilt and self-disgust.

See, I've always been afraid of marriage because of, you know, ball and chain, I want my freedom, all that. But when I was thinking about that stupid girl I suddenly saw it was the opposite: that if you got married to someone you know you love, and you sort yourself out, it frees you up for other things.

He was a story at least, even if he never became anything else.

like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin' Wolf in twenty-five moves; I am no longer pained by the memory of listening to "Sexual Healing" all the way through a period of enforced celibacy, or embarrassed by the reminder of forming a rock club at school, so that I and my fellow fifth-formers could get together and talk about Ziggy Stardust and Tommy.

I remember the juvenile stuff, where you put your arm along the sofa and let it drop onto her shoulder, or press your leg against hers; I remember the mock-tough adult stuff I used to try when I was in my mid-twenties, where I looked someone in the eye and asked if they wanted to stay the night. But none of that seems appropriate anymore. What do you do when you're old enough to know better?

So, have you split up now?

She didn't want her father to die. She would mourn him. She owed him . . . not everything, exactly, because there were lots of things she'd had to obtain for herself, but enough. If, however, the choice was between a brief good-bye and a new life, then it was no choice at all.

Ella pasó por una especie de Kramer contra Kramer en su día. Ya sabes, una de esas chaladuras presuntuosas en las que uno trata de averiguar quién demonios es. - ¿Y al final averiguó quién era? - No, no lo creo. Dudo mucho que alguien llegue a saber quién es de verdad, ¿no te parece?

I love every second of the play. I drink it, like someone with dehydration might drink a glass of iced water. I love being made to think about something else other than my work and my marriage, and I love its wit and its seriousness, and I vow for the millionth time to nourish myself in this way on a more regular basis

I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.

In the months after the relationship ends, a person can seem to grow at a lightning rate, like in a nature documentary where weeks of footage is run at high speed to show a plant unfurling in seconds, but in reality the person has been growing all along, under the surface, and it is only in their new freedom, in their hair-raising aloneness, that the person can allow for these underground things to break through and unfurl themselves in the light.

it is necessary for you to study; since, then, you have no longer the excuse of illness, take pains to study letters and music, for you see what honour is done to me for the little skill I have. Therefore, my son, if you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself.

We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don't throw out the best part of ourselves.

Alguém que iça as velas de um barco e assim se deixa levar pelas tempestades não esteve numa viagem; apenas foi jogado de um lado para o outro. O mesmo acontece com a vida. Estar fora de controle, ser carregado pelos acontecimentos sem ter tempo para as experiências mais valiosas e significativas, é bem diferente de viver verdadeiramente.

All mistakes teach us something, so there are, in reality, no mistakes.

And mostly we need to pick and choose Who we listen to so we follow our own path Yeah we need to follow our own path

I wanted to help him but I guess ultimately you can only slay the dragon yourself. All that I could do was help him sharpen his sword if he needed me to.

He and Nona made me. They gave me a soft heart. They are the good that's in me. When I lose my compassion and anger rears its ugly head, I think about my life

Even if we do not like to show our weakness to the world, we should have friends, genuine and true like mirrors, clearly revealing our faults so that we can face and cure them. Let me be your mirror.

The heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

anyone can consider what he now knows and can ask what he knew twenty years ago, and can see that in some unclear fashion he was striving towards something which he can only now understand … if he is fortunate.

The divorce has lasted way longer than the marriage, but finally it's over. Enough about that.The point is that for a long time, the fact that I was divorced was the most important thing about me.And now it's not.

When I pass a bookshelf, I like to pick out a book from it and thumb through it. When I see a newspaper on the couch, I like to sit down with it.... Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person.

Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I accomplished something, became a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on.