Quotes from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I am afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it--and that's all I got.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I have learned that trying again is important and decisivness is good.

I have learned that silence hurts.

I have learned about starting over
and releasing pride.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“We are all carrying so many things in our life and inside ourselves. Often it feels there is no place to put them down. Where do you place the questions you carry”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“TRYING TO FILL THE empty SPACE

i don't know
if I will
ever understand
this Ache.
Perhaps it is
simpley and completely
Love and


what

HAPPENS.
at the end.

Loss

November 17, early morning”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“The truth is WE ALL ACHE.
WE ALL HAVE GROWING PAINS
and wonder if WE ARE
OKAY adn enough + loved.
THE THING IS - WE ARE.
REALLY.
WITHOUT the silver shoes
and lepord print sheet.
WE ARE ENOUGH WITHOUT
all the things we buy
to make us much more
than we are or need to be
we are simple
and complex
and rare
as is.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I have learned that frustration is allowed and talking it through
is necessary.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I feel quite lost INSIDE myself, like I'm looking for my train tracks for my life, as if they would just appear and solve the growing questions I seem to face (my reflection in the morning).”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I have learned that trust comes and goes and love comes before hate. Elise age 10.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“Driving to class with him. All I could
think about was
that it had been
three days
since I'd touched
his face
AND HE
SEEMED
so fine.

I said, to him "you seem like you didn't miss a beat."

He looked at me
and said
Sabrina, I've missed
so many beats, I've
MADE A RhytHM.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I have learned to take a bit more off
and rest a little deeper.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“I have learned that I am enough...
I have learned that no one else can
LOVE ME - FOR ME.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“Mom and I were walking onteh beach and I was explaining to her how I wantd to "GET OVER all my INSECURITIES" and "La La... La.."....
and she looked at me and said
"Sabrina, does anyone realy feel good about themselves for MORE than 5 minutes?"
We both laughed. I was releaved to know she felt that way becuae she seems SO graceful, calm and beautiful, which she is.. but also full of so much more. Auestions, doubts + WONDER.
I think that if we can aim for just five minutes a day of complete acceptance of ourselves, we are doing very well!”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“MUCKY
drawing
I AM FeeLing
completely
mucky today too.
everyone at school
seems so much tougher + pulled together
and not so emotionally involved.


I get so mad at MYSELF FOR
'caring so deeply' AND
'MAINTAINING' all this stuff
in me
that FEELS SO PATHectic.
I want to put my tHINKing
in HYBernation FOR A WHile.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

“If I had my life to live over, I’d try and make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. I would be less hygienic. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who live prophylactically and sanely and sensibly, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I wouldn’t make such good grades except by accident. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I’d pick more daisies.”
― Sabrina Ward Harrison, quote from Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

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Popular quotes

“You're the one who has to live with your choice," she says. "Everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will.”
― Veronica Roth, quote from The Transfer

“The people in the city seem paper thin in the mist. They believe they are dancing to the music of their lives... But I think, like the puppets, each of us is pulled upon invisible strings, until the night comes and we are put away. I shiver, and hurry from the square, as the darkness of the city closes over me like canal water or the grave.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Sandman: Endless Nights

“There is one in this tribe too often miserable - a child bereaved of both parents. None cares for this child: she is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten: a hut rarely receives her: the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades: sadness hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die: but she both lives and grows: the green wilderness nurses her, and becomes to her a mother: feeds her on juicy berry, on saccharine root and nut.

There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly: there must be something, too, in its dews, which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from heaven the germ of pure thought, and purer feeling. Not grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage; not violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird: in all the grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.

The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, - bestowed on deer and dove, - has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her tresses: her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy: above those eyes, when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample, - a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant; she haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful: though of what one so untaught can think, it is not easy to divine.


On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone - for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where, - she went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag, overspread by a tree, was her station: the oak-roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat: the oak-boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy.

Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death: the wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair.

The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather in feeling than in thinking, - in wishing, than hoping, - in imagining, than projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things, herself seemed to herself the centre, - a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed, - a star in an else starless firmament, - which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor priest, tracked as a guide, or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she should find exercise?”
― Charlotte Brontë, quote from Shirley

“Wait. Wait. Mackensie? The redhead you had a crush on in high school?” Defeated, Carter rubbed the spot between his eyebrows again. “I should never have told you about that. This is why I rarely drink.” “But, Cart, this is like kismet.” Excitement rushed through the words. “It’s like return of the nerd. It’s the big chance to follow up on a lost opportunity.” “It’s coffee,” Carter muttered.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Vision in White

“He pulled my face up with his hand cupping my cheek and kissed me on my trembling mouth. He smoothed his hands down my arms, my back, my hair, my cheek, soothing me.

“There’s a picture of you two in the dictionary under ‘get a room’,” Kyle said from behind me.”
― Shelly Crane, quote from Accordance

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