Quotes from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. (10)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape -- all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know
…nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, "May I have permission to go into battle with you?" Fear said, "Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission." Then the young warrior said, "How can I defeat you?" Fear replied, "My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power." In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear. ”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us...It was all about letting go of everything.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. (9)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. (36)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even one, that's the journey of the warrior. (68)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away. (5)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“What happens with you when you begin to feel uneasy, unsettled, queasy? Notice the panic, notice when you instantly grab for something. (51)”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move. In reality, however, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we’re addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“NOT CAUSING HARM obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes not being aggressive—not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds. Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression. Not harming ourselves or others in the beginning, not harming ourselves or others in the middle, and not harming ourselves or others in the end is the basis of enlightened society.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

About the author

Popular quotes

“Lần đầu tiên tôi thoáng nhìn thấy thế giới mới, tôi khiếp hãi. Tôi đã hiểu ra thế nào là cô đơn, là không chỗ gối đầu, thế nào là để cho thiên hạ và để cho chính mình được tự do, thế nào là yêu thương tất cả chứ không sủng ái riêng ai - bởi tình yêu là thế. Trời chiếu nắng trên cả kẻ tốt và người xấu, trời đổ mưa trên tội nhân cũng như thánh nhân.

Làm sao hoa hồng có thể nói: “tôi sẽ tỏa hương cho người lành chứ không tỏa hương cho kẻ dữ ngửi tôi”? Hoặc có thể nào ngọn đèn lại nói: “tôi sẽ tỏa ánh sáng cho những người tốt trong phòng này, chứ không cho những kẻ xấu”? Hay một bóng cây, làm sao có thể chỉ che mát cho người tốt và từ chối đối với người xấu? Tình yêu cũng như vậy đó.

Tình yêu ấy vẫn luôn có mặt và trực diện chúng ta nơi Thánh Kinh, dù chúng ta chưa bao giờ chú ý ngắm nhìn nó - bởi chúng ta quá đắm chìm trong những thứ mà văn hóa của chúng ta gọi là tình yêu, với những khúc tình ca, những bài thơ tình... nhưng kỳ thực đó không phải là tình yêu mà là đối nghịch với tình yêu. Đó là sự khát khao, sự kiểm soát và chiếm hữu. Đó là sự tính toán đòn phép, và sợ hãi, và lo âu - không phải tình yêu. Người ta bảo chúng ta rằng hạnh phúc là một làn da trắng mịn, là một khu nghỉ mát. Hạnh phúc đâu phải thế, song chúng ta lại có những phương cách khôn khéo để bắt hạnh phúc của chúng ta tùy thuộc vào những thứ khác - cả bên trong lẫn ở ngoài chúng ta. Chúng ta nói: - “Tôi không hạnh phúc được khi còn mang trong người chứng loạn thần kinh”. Tôi báo tin vui cho bạn đây: Bạn có thể hạnh phúc ngay bây giờ đấy, với chứng loạn thần kinh của bạn. Bạn còn đòi gì nữa không? Chỉ có một lý do giải thích vì sao chúng ta không cảm nghiệm được cái mà tiếng Ấn Độ gọi là “anand” - hạnh phúc hoàn toàn trọn vẹn. Chỉ có một lý do vì sao chúng ta không nếm cảm được hạnh phúc trọn vẹn đó ngay trong giây phút hiện tại này - đó là vì ta mải lo nghĩ hoặc bận tâm đến những cái ta không có. Giá bạn đừng lo nghĩ như thế thì hẳn bạn đã có được hạnh phúc trọn vẹn. Bạn bận tâm đến những gì mình không có. Thế mà, ngay chính lúc này bạn đang có mọi sự cần thiết để được hạnh phúc trọn vẹn.”
― Anthony de Mello, quote from Awareness: Conversations with the Masters

“It takes two to make a marriage work and two to make it fall apart.”
― Karen Kingsbury, quote from A Time to Dance

“If you loved someone, really loved them, would you let them go?”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Mercy

“— Mas o que é que você faria com o Graal?

— Eu iria usá-lo.

— Para quê?

— Para livrar o mundo do pecado.

— Seria um trabalho notável, mas nem Cristo conseguiu realizá-lo.

— Você pára de eliminar ervas daninhas entre os vinhedos só porque elas sempre voltam a nascer?”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Heretic

“I was born on the night of Samhain, when the barrier between the worlds is whisper-thin and when magic, old magic, sings its heady and sweet song to anyone who cares to hear it.”
― Carolyn MacCullough, quote from Once a Witch

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.