
“But the speed was power, and the speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty.”
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach and illustrated by Russell Munson, is a fable in novella form about a seagull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection. Bach wrote it as a series of short stories that were published in Flying magazine in the late 1960s. It was first published in book form in 1970, and by the end of 1972 over a million copies were in print. Reader's Digest published a condensed version, and the book reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, where it remained for 37 weeks. In 1972 and 1973, the book topped the Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States.
“But the speed was power, and the speed was joy, and the speed was pure beauty.”
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
“Overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Context: If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?
“It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
“Heaven is not a place, and it's not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
“One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin.”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull