“Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.”

“Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has divined the natural shape of his story is just this: after reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right.”

“You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.”

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

“Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it's time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.”

“After you have gotten the mind, allowed the mind, to remove its focus from your story—tell it to refocus on what you—Big You—now choose to be. Once you get free of your story and your data, once you get to the space of no-thought, you then choose a state of being.”

“You can grow grapes in almost any part of the world. You just have to develop your palate enough to realize wine is an expression of the place where you make it. You don't have to take over the world; just be an artist and express your area.”

“If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.”

“Everyone has a past, but that's just it--it's in the past. You can learn from it, but you can't change it.”

“The pas has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.”