- “In my early professional years, I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
- “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
- “The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”
- “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
- “When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.”
- “When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, “Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it’s like to be me.”
- “When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens, how confusions that seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard. I have deeply appreciated the times that I have experienced this sensitive, empathic, concentrated listening.”
- “When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mould you, it feels damn good…”
- “People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be… When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner”… I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
- “I’m not perfect, but I’m enough.”