“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective.

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.

We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.

It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.

As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.

The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.

So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.

The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.

When things fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And as Chögyam Trungpa used to tell us, that’s cause for celebration.

Fame freaks me out. Do you just wake up different? I don’t know how to scale it back if it gets too crazy.

I was suddenly left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars.

I realized either I was crazy or the world was crazy; and I picked on the world. And of course I was right.

It’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

Oh come all ve misfits, you belong in my fun freak world.

I’m strange! I have a weird sense of humor! I look crazy!

We are all just humans trying to survive in this crazy world, in the spaces between birth and death.

What kind of crazy nut would spend two or three hours a day just running?