Richard Bach

If you love someone set them free. If they come back they're yours, if they don't they never were.

True love stories never have endings.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive it isn't.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

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

Avoid problems and you'll never be the one who overcame them.

Sometimes when learning comes before experience it doesn't make sense right away.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

Some choices we live not only once, but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.

Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection, go anywhere instantly.

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.

Here is a test to find if your mission on Earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn't.

You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are.

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.

The world's crazy when it comes to beauty.

The simplest things are often the truest.

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

Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love aren't you already there?

Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land and decided I'd better not marry the natives.

Strong beliefs win strong men and then make them stronger.

Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners doers and teachers.

When you have come to the edge of all the light you have, And step into the darkness of the unknown, Believe that one of the two will happen to you, Either you'll find something solid to stand on, Or you'll be taught how to fly!

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

The more I want to get something done the less I call it work.

There's always some aftermath good and bad makes-me-happy or makes-me-unhappy for anything we choose to do.

No matter how qualified or deserving we are we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.

Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it.

Jonathan is that brilliant little fire that burns within us all that lives only for those moments when we reach perfection.

How do you know if your mission in life is finished? If you're still alive it isn't.

What are we trying to practice every day? If our friendship depends on things like space and time then when we finally overcome space and time we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space and all we have left is Here. Overcome time and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?"

Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible and now I must hold out for what I thought we had.

To fly as fast as thought you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

Children are not our property and they are not ours to control any more that we were our parents' property or theirs to control.

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do even what we think. We do this because we're afraid. We fear we will not find love and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.

The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere slowly.

You teach best what you need to learn.

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

Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.

In the United States Christmas has become the rape of an idea.

Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof.

You don't tell the quality of a master by the size of his crowds.

Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world - even if what is published is not true.

Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

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

Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing

You don't want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.

There's no disaster that can't become a blessing and no blessing that can't become a disaster

Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life forms and they call you crazy

You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it however.

You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future or a different past.

Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.

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 are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves no matter how unpleasant are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn, whatever steps we take they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

Every word that judges value is circular. 'Good' is 'right' is 'proper' is 'just' is 'good'. But check the examples and they're not circular at all: Every one says 'makes me happy'.

Ask yourself the secret of YOUR success. Listen to your answer and practice it."

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.

I don't want to do business with those who don't make a profit because they can't give the best service.

If you love something set it free, if it comes back it's yours. If it doesn't it never was.

I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me.

Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.

Compelling reason will never convince blinding emotion.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

There is such a thing as perfection...and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth....Each of us is in truth an unlimited idea of freedom. Everything that limits us we have to put aside.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible but the mark of a fake messiah. [The Savior's Manual]

The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.

Every person all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

That's what learning is after all, not whether we lose the game but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before to apply to other games. Losing in a curious way is winning.

The most important thing in living was to reach out and touch perfection in that which we most loved to do

In order to win you must expect to win.

Shop for security over happiness and we buy it at that price

Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings our sense of direction. When we're two balloons and together our direction is up chances are we've found the right person.

Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.

It is by not always thinking of yourself if you can manage it that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself you will always be searching and lost

'It's okay' is a cosmic truth.

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect. Then be sure of one thing: The Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have. The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.

You are not little because you are already grown playing among your lifetimes as do we all for the fun of living.

Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. 'Nothing' is the worst thing that can happen to us!

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

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does I guess you do have a problem.

Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions asked again being you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.

Everything in this book may be wrong. [The Savior's Manual]

To bring anything into your life imagine that it's already there.

Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.

Listen to what you know instead of what you fear.

The idea that we are physical beings descended from primeval cells in nutrient soups that idea does violence to my intuition stomps all over it with football-shoes. The idea that we are descended from a jealous God who formed us out of dust to choo

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.

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.

If you will practice being fictional for a while you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.

One must learn to fall if one would fly.

Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift passed civilization by rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love.

Look in a mirror and one thing's sure, what we see is not who we are.

An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must nevertheless suffer for it.

The meaning I picked the one that changed my life: Overcome fear behold wonder.

We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we've created ourselves? Who's to blame who's to credit but us? Who can change it anytime we wish but us?

If it's never our fault we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it we'll always be its victim.

Get this in mind early: We never grow up.

If we must lose wife or husband when we live to our highest right we lose an unhappy marriage as well and we gain ourselves. But if a marriage is born between two already self-discovered what a lovely adventure begins hurricanes and all.

Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours.

Sooner or later those who win are those who think they can.

As you believe so it is for you.

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.

Fail at love and the other tests don't matter.

The way to avoid responsibility is to say ''I've got responsibilities.''

Live enough of what you've always dreamed of doing and there's no room left for feeling bad.

Learning is finding out what you already know Doing is demonstrating that you know it Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do. We are all learners doers and teachers.

Allow the world to live as it chooses and allow yourself to live as you choose.

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed...It feels an impulsion...this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know too when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes a farewell is necessary before you can meet again and meeting again after moments or lifetimes is certain for those who are friends.

One of the great cosmic laws I think is that whatever we hold in our thought will come true in our experience.

A name is a label and as soon as there is a label the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing and instead of living by a theme of ideas people begin dying for labels... and the last thing the world needs is another religion.

Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever and we'll meet now and then when we wish in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.

I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?

Hell is a place a time a consciousness in which there is no love.

Learning is finding out what you already know.