Mark Nepo Quotes

“Whatever opens us is not as important as what it opens.”

“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.”

“Those who truly love us will never knowingly ask us to be other than we are”

“…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” (p.275)”

“…there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.”

“Whatever truth we feel compelled to withhold, no matter how unthinkable it is to imagine ourselves telling it, not to is a way of spiritually holding our breath. You can only do it for so long.”

“Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment--where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels--this moment shows us that what is real is sacred”

“When we keep choosing between right and wrong. We spend our energy sorting life rather than living it.”

“Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond.”

“Let's be in awe
which doesn't mean
anything but the courage
to gape like fish at the surface
breaking around our mouths
as we meet the air.”

“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”

“We are broken open, or we willfully shed.”

“Anything or anyone that asks you to be other than yourself is not holy, but is trying only to fill its own need.”

“In a world that lives like a fist
mercy is not more than waking
with your hands open.”