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1 " I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience. "
― Shauna Niequist , Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life
2 " By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life. "
― Virginia Woolf , Orlando
3 " He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life. "
4 " Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. "
― Les Brown
5 " Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages. "
― Terry Pratchett , Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches #2)
6 " We should write as we dream; we should even try and write, we should all do it for ourselves, it’s very healthy, because it’s the only place where we never lie. At night we don’t lie. Now if we think that our whole lives are built on lying-they are strange buildings-we should try and write as our dreams teach us; shamelessly, fearlessly, and by facing what is inside very human being-sheer violence, disgust, terror, shit, invention, poetry. In our dreams we are criminals; we kill, and we kill with a lot of enjoyment. But we are also the happiest people on earth; we make love as we never make love in life. "
― Hélène Cixous
7 " A person who goes in search of God is wasting his time. He can walk a thousand roads and join many religions and sects–but he'll never find God that way. God is here, right now, at our side. We can see Him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around. But meeting Him is not easy. The more God asks us to participate in Hismysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly tofollow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way. Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the father. "
― Paulo Coelho , By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
8 " It is not needful for our dreams to be very grand nor very big. It is only needful for our dreams to be very shiny. "
― C. JoyBell C.
9 " Dreams are what keep us growing. They are what keep us alive. To give up, is to let our dreams die. "
― Phil Mitchell , A Bright New Morning: An American Story
10 " A thought enters your brain and lasts an average of five seconds. The only way to keep it is to grab hold of it and claim it. The same applies to dreams. We forget most of our dreams because we never take the actions needed to make them our own. "
― Toni Sorenson ,
11 " We can talk about our dreams all night, Lisette. We can talk forever, for the rest of our lives, living one adventure after another, I promise. But not now, my darling Lisette. For now, all I can think of is the brilliance of yet another ancient Greek, Sophocles. He said, 'One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life-that word is love.' I love you, Lisette. You bring my life joy I've never known. Please, marry me. "
― Kasey Michaels , The Return of the Prodigal (Romney Marsh #6)
12 " But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. "
― Robert Ardrey , African Genesis
13 " We hold our dreams and ideals close to our hearts, where the promises are made to the future generations. "
― John Rachel , A Long Night's Journey Into Daylight
14 " When our dreams don’t come true, sometimes we can hand them down to our children and hope that they will come true for them. The joy can be immeasurable just the same. "
― Isabel Lopez , Isabel's Hand-Me-Down Dreams
15 " Death is a part of Life, they are dancing together the dance of infinity in front of the gates of Time. We can live our dreams as we are dreaming our future. Time is the Endless Consciousness "
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16 " Far away, our dreams have nothing to do with what we do. The wind carries the night, and passes on, aimless. "
― Mahmoud Darwish , In the Presence of Absence
17 " In the absence of faith, our dreams will move from feasible aspirations to implausible fantasy. "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough
18 " Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something. "
― Haruki Murakami
19 " So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. "
― Christopher Reeve
20 " None of us can accomplish our dreams without the help of others. Is it more important for you to feel superior and self-sufficient than to accomplish your dreams within a community of supporters? "
― Nick Vujicic , Unstoppable: The Incredible Power of Faith in Action