19 Quotes by Lionel Fisher

People who need people are threatened by people who don’t. The idea of seeking contentment alone is heretical, for society steadfastly decrees that our completeness lies in others.

Why can't we say 'When!' about money the way we say 'When!' about coffee?

Such an incredible, stupefying realization: I am not, indeed, the center of the universe.Not! Not! Not!And the overwhelming gratitude, the flooding relief that comes from finally being able to give myself the permission to lay down that excruciating, exhausting burden of needing to prove to the world, every waking moment, that I am, indeed, undeniably, irrefutably The Center of the Universe.

When was the last time someone was so overjoyed to see you, so brimming with love and affection that they literally ran to greet you? A dog will do that for you--ten, twenty, thirty times a day.

Americans are funny," Terence O'Donnell pointed out in a conversation we had about our national need to own as much as possible, including our joy. "We look for a state of happiness," said O'Donnell. "But the French know that's ridiculous. They accept that there are only les petits bonheurs, the little happinesses, only the moments: a sudden view, awakening to a superb morning, the sun's warmth, a cooling breeze.

Enough is never enough.Not for our massive, marauding, relentlessly acquisitive egos whose eternal cry is 'More!''More!'Forever 'More!'Wisdom, then, is the simple realization, the grateful acknowledgment, 'Hey, I'm good.'I have enough.I don't need more.

I was always a stranger at home, in all the places I ever lived.

In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: "One."Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly.

Regrets are particularly poignant for the old, those of us who have used up most of the chances we'll ever get and are left to make peace with our failed choices. Most things distance themselves with space and time to eventually slide off the edge of our consciousness, but not regrets. You can shove them aside, disavow them for a lifetime, but they always return. And the longer you deny them, the more they punish you when they can no longer be held at bay.