“It's easy to hate and point out everything that is wrong with the world; it is the hardest and most important work in one's life to free oneself from the bonds of fear and attachment.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The truth is, going against the internal stream of ignorance is way more rebellious than trying to start some sort of cultural revolution.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“...I didn't feel like there was anything incompatible with my love of gangster rap and my spiritual aspirations.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The body breathes by itself. The mind thinks by itself. Awareness simply observes the process without getting lost in the content.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The practice of celibacy alone was opening me up to a deeper sense of the way the mind-body connection works. I saw over and over that my mind and body could be filled with desire and that no matter how intense the craving was it would always pass. I didn't have to satisfy every desire that arose in my mind. I began to understand impermanence through direct experience rather than just intellectual theory.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The more I practiced kindness and humility, the more the world seemed to appear friendly and manageable.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“The more my mind began to quiet, the more I found myself wanting to be surrounded by natural beauty.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“We agreed that at least to some extent the whole punk movement is based on the Buddha's 1st noble truth of suffering & the dissatisfactory nature of the material world. The punks see through the lies of society & the oppressive dictates of modern consumer culture. Very few punks though seem to take it further & attempt to understand the causes & conditions of the suffering & falsehoods, unfortunately punks rarely come around to seeing that there is actually a solution & a path to personal freedom. My own life's experience w/ both Dharma practice & punk rock inspired me to try to bridge the gap between the two. I've tried to help point out the similarities, while also acknowledging the differences, & to show those of my generation who are interested that they can practice meditation & find there the freedom we have been seeking in our rebellion against the system.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“Actually a solution & a path to personal freedom. My own life's experience w/ both Dharma practice & punk rock inspired me to try to bridge the gap between the two. I've tried to help point out the similarities, while also acknowledging the differences, & to show those of my generation who are interested that they can practice meditation & find there the freedom we have been seeking in our rebellion against the system.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Dharma Punx: A Memoir
“George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “Yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me, and must be punished for it. George and Martha… Sad, sad, sad.”
― Edward Albee, quote from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
“You have every right not to trust me, Tate. I know that. My fucking heart is ripping open right now. I can’t stand the way you’re looking at me. I could never hurt you again. Please…let’s try to fix this together.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Until You
“Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut--hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs--products of what they call "Reforestation," which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a "Reforest," which makes an individual spindly fir a "Refir," which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth's face forever a "crop"--as if they'd planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees.”
― David James Duncan, quote from The River Why
“Eventually, mercifully, the waitress prised the spoons out of our hands and took the dessert stuff away, and we were able to stumble zombielike out into the night.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
“It's them, Miller. Not us. It's the FBR that should be sorry.”
― Kristen Simmons, quote from Article 5
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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