Richard Bach

Look in the mirror and one thing is sure: what we see is not who we are.

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.

Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I'm master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell's own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.

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

The highest art form of all is a human being in control of himself and his airplane in flight, urging the spirit of a machine to match his own.

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

We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory. Examples from every other life are left for us to see, lifeworks finished and unfinished, guiding and warning. Near the end our sculpture is nearly finished, and we can smooth and polish what we started years before. We can make our progress then, but to do it we must see past the appearances of age.

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

nobody means to get carried away in mediocrity, but it happens, it happens unless you think about everything you do, unless you make every choice the best one you know how to make.

Same with anyone who's been flying for years and loves it still... we're part of a world we deeply love. Just as musicians feel about scores and melodies, dancers about the steps and flow of music, so we're one with the principle of flight, the magic of being aloft in the wind!

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

It doesn’t take time to change once you understand the problem...Somebody hands you a rattlesnake, it doesn’t take long to drop it, does it?

You're never given a dream without the power to make it true.

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.

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise.

Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another.

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.

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

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

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.