Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men.

People don’t resist change, they resist being changed.

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

True change takes place in the imagination.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?

When we are rickety, Morning Pages lend us stability. They miniaturize the terrors that we are walking through. They bring life back down to the possible: Exactly what can we do today? Taken in a daily bit, most change, however extreme, can be metabolized. Our Pages give us time and place to get used to change. When we remember that we have a daily life, we begin to find our grounding. It is our job, faced with impending to find our grounding. It is our job, faced with impending change, to continue to husband the life that we have got. It is our job to buy the kitty litter, call the plumber, keep our hand moving across the page.

I'm not going to change my teeth or get a nose job. That manufactured perfection does nothing for me.

Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change.

The lilies of the field begin as buds. We are asked to trust that just as they had a glorious and safe unfolding, so will we. In the natural world, we see butter-flies emerge from from awkward yet protective cocoons. We must remind ourselves to trust that sometimes we, too, are being protected in our growth. Our erraticism, our ungainliness, our panic — these, too, are natural to the passage of change. The Great Creator experiences all his creation in the throes of shifting identity. The unfolding saga of life on all levels is one of constant transformation, constant changing of form. When we cooperate with our need and desire to grow, we are cooperating with spiritual law.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.

Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin.

Acting our way into right thinking is putting pen to the page even when the censor is shrieking. It is choosing to write even when writing feels "wrong" to us — because we're tired, we're bothered, we're any number of things that writing will change if only we will let it. Doing it all the time, whether or not we are in the mood, gives us ownership of our writing ability. It takes it out of the realm of conjuring and makes it something as do-able as picking up a hammer and pounding a nail.