Richard Bach Quotes

All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.

At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.

Whatever happens on the surface, it's leading us in a direction. That beautiful core within us that is our character will make choices that will inevitably leads us to a higher understanding of who we are and why we're here. And it's best to be aware of that while it's happening.

As you believe, so it is for you.

It doesn't matter whether they [beloved ones] are on this planet or not on this planet anymore. Once something is bound by love, as long as that love exists, there is nothing that can separate us. There is the appearance of separation, but the heart, it always treasures and values that.

We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and love!

I think our learning lies along the path of whatever it is we love.

Whatever enchants also guides and protects.

There is a kind of silver spiderweb that's spun around the world, and the strands of that web are certain loves and certain understandings. And if we follow those, and if we walk those strands, we're going to meet others at the intersections who have been walking the same way across this web. And when we meet, there's a kind of "I know who you are."

The creative, loving-something life is also the healthy one. There is healing and protection in doing what makes you happy.

You'd chosen to be an upright biped on the surface of a small planet of a minor sun on the edge of a minor galaxy of one of the multiple trillions of universes. That's OK. It doesn't matter what form you take.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

Reality lies far beyond space and time, and I need to know why.

Dying is like diving into a deep lake on a hot day. There's the shock of that sharp, cold change, the pain of it for a second, and then accepting is a swim in reality. But after so many times, even the shock wears off.

Perspective - Use It or Lose It.

There is a family of us who have this yearning for a kind of excellence that we can manifest every day of our lives, a family who wants to believe we're not pawns, we're not victims on this planet, that knows we have the power within us here and now to change the world we see around us!

We [Americans] are game-playing, fun-loving creatures; we are the otters of the universe.

With every choice you risk the life you would have had; with every decision, you lose it.

There is something that is transcendental about when we are immersed in that which we most love.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift.

The big thing about writing is three commands: Have fun. Don't think. Don't care.

In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.

I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.

I'll quote the truth wherever I find it thank you.

Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's reason to live! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can learn to be free! we can learn to fly!

Your harshest truths are dreams, and your gentlest dreams are true.

To me, one of the most profound questions we can ask is: "So what?" And so what if there's an indefinite number of worlds with alternate "us-es" in them? The "so what," to me, comes alive when I ask myself: "What if I could find a way to get in touch with those alternate mes who made those choices?" That is, persons who, if I saw them now, I wouldn't even recognize because their choices, once small, have multiplied to make them such different people.

We don't have rights until we claim them.

Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

When I'm writing it's as if I'm the observer. It's as if that computer screen there -it used to be the typewriter - just kind of dissolves and there's this whirling tunnel of mist and there's a kind of proscenium arch, and then there are my characters, and they say what they say, and I laugh sometimes in surprise at what they say.

Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing, and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, part for me, may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before long.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.

Only a few people are interested in what you have to say, but that is all right. You don't have to tell the quality of a master by the size of his crowds.

It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid?

One way to pick a future is to believe it’s inevitable.

Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.

I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.

Civilization... wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere.

I don't think creativity is mine to maintain. It automatically comes when we declare that "I am an expression of life, and life will express itself through me in the most playful and wonderful of ways, if I let it."

I'm not approachable by someone who says, "Let's try some drugs," or something like that. I'm absolutely close-minded about that kind of thing. But I'm wide open to anyone who says, "I've been wondering why we're here and where we're going, and I've got a few answers, but I wondered if anything ever happened to you that suggests..." Then they have me, and I become a chatterbox and can just talk away literally for days.

Have you ever felt so at one with the world, with the universe, with everything that is, that you were overcome with love? That is reality. That is the truth. What we make of it is up to us, as the painting of the sunrise is up to the artist. In our world humanity has strayed from that love. It lives hatred and power struggles and manipulations of the earth itself for its own narrow reasons. Continue and no one will see the sunrise. The sunrise will always exist, of course, but people on earth will know nothing of it and finally even stories of its beauty will fade from our knowing.

For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

We can start working with time if you wish," Chiang said, "till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.

She didn't mean to be sexy that moment, but even a winter nightgown couldn't hide that lovely outline. When will I outgrow my simple-minded fascination with the form she had happened to choose for her body? Never, I thought

We thought humble and proud at the same time, all at once in love again with this painful bittersweet lovely thing called flight.

Rebuilding us. Isn't that what the spirit requires, when we climb over the wreckage of our lives, sometimes, we go on to make our lives our own affirmation? We are perfect expressions of perfect Love, here and now. There is no permanent injury.