To be authentic literally means to be your own author.

Dad, once an aspiring architect, drove his own catering truck to feed factory workers in downtown Los Angeles, and mom, with a Mensa IQ and mathematical gifts, served as a bookkeeper and worked in a grocery store while pursuing her calling in music: playing piano and composing songs. Perhaps in a way, part of my drive was to complete their unfulfilled ambitions and dreams, but in my own way.

Everyone everywhere live[s] a confused, bitter search. Reality never matched their dreams; happiness was just around the corner - a corner they never turned. And the source of it all [is] the human mind.

When you begin your transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior's way.

If you desire to dig a well to reach water, your efforts are more fruitful if you dig one 100-foot-deep hole than if you dig ten holes each 10 feet deep.

If babies held the same tendency toward self-criticism as adults, they might never learn to walk or talk. Can you imagine infants stomping, 'Aarggh! Screwed up again!' Fortunately, babies are free of self-criticism. They just keep practicing.

When we feel stuck, going nowhere-even starting to slip backward-we may actually be backing up to get a running start.