Barry Lopez Quotes

Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.

I was kind of surprised to learn how controlling I am. I never thought of myself in that way. I think the root of the control issues is usually fear, because you want to know what's going to be happening at any given moment.

Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.

People do not like to be confronted with unpleasant possibilities of their own futures.

All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.

Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself.

We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives.

I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.

If a man really knew himself he would utterly despise the ignorant notions others might form on a subject in which he had such matchless opportunities for observation.

We must remember that knowledge of one’s own deep nature is also simultaneously knowledge of human nature in general.

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.

Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.

Humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear.

The question 'Who am I?' is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life.

There is no quality that we respond to in another that we lack. It might be hidden behind some bad behavior or an old, outdated shadow belief that says we are the exact opposite of what we are seeing in the other person. But I promise you that if you are attracted to a quality in someone else, no matter how great, it also exists inside of you.

Never neglect the little things. Never skimp on that extra effort, that additional few minutes, that soft word of praise or thanks, that delivery of the very best that you can do. It does not matter what others think, it is of prime importance, however, what you think about you. You can never do your best, which should always be your trademark, if you are cutting corners and shirking responsibilities. You are special. Act it. Never neglect the little things.

We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.

Il y a dans les hommes plus de choses a' admirer que de choses a' me priser. There are more things to admire in people than to despise.

Write about what you're afraid of.

While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.

Whether the Virgin Mary existed, I don't know. But the human need for her to appear in tortilla, that's what inspires my interest.

We are not greatly pleased that our friends should respect our good qualities if they venture to perceive our faults.

It is always the first and last steps that are the hardest to take. We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what's waiting for us now that we've returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place and life to the next. We try to do the best we can. There are moments like this, however, when we are neither coming nor going, and all we have to do is sit and look back on the life we have made.

It's not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.

There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.