Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

Each of us has capacities. The real trick is knowing the machinery of the boat in which you are crossing the channel.

Every hero must have the courage to be alone, to take the journey for himself.

Follow your bliss. The heroic life is living the individual adventure. There is no security in following the call to adventure. Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.

The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.

The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth.

Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message.