Richard Bach

"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah."

"I felt like a moth in a chandelier — all at once there were lots of pretty choices, but I wasn't quite sure where to fly."

"No one does anything uncharacteristic of who they are."

"There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go."

"That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."

"The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it."

"The music broke from the piano like clear cold water from a prophet-touched rock, pouring and splashing around us while her fingers leaped and spread, curled and stiffened and melted and flickered in magic pass and streaked lightning above the keyboard. Never before had she played for me... because we were lovers now, was she free to play...?"

"He wanted so much to ask, and he dared so little to know."

"As long as we believe in sequential time, we see becoming, instead of being. Beyond time, we're all one."

"The things we own, the places we live, the events of our lives: empty settings. How easy to chase after settings, and forget diamonds! The only thing that matters, at the end of a stay on earth, is how well did we love, what was the quality of our love?"

"The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness. It is intimacy."

"We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and LOVE!"

"Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to Love."

"It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now! Was it worth what I paid?"

"What I have just heard is pure . . . listen! . . . radiance, that you took from cloud-linings and sunrises and distilled into light that I can hear! Do you know how good, how lovely that is, what you can make the piano do?"

"Lika barn leka bäst."