Nonattachment to results + self compassion = a supple relentlessness that is hard to match. Push hard, play to win, but don’t assume the fetal position if things don’t go your way.

Our entire lives are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking—most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential.

The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.

The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought.

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.

We suffer because we get attached to people and possessions that ultimately evaporate.

The route to true happiness was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.

This is where the Buddhists diverged quite dramatically from self-help: They had an actual, practical program. It wasn’t expensive gimcrackery. No spendy seminars, no credit cards required. It was totally free.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.

We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things—without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.

Picture the mind like a waterfall, they said: the water is the torrent of thoughts and emotions; mindfulness is the space behind the waterfall.

RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification

Bingo: respond not react.

Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposite of “suffering.”

The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on.

... ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?

Our life is the manifestation of our minds.

The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.

The brain, it turns out, is constantly changing in response to experience. It’s possible to sculpt your brain through meditation just as you build and tone your body through exercise—to grow your gray matter the way doing curls grows your bicep.

The brain, the organ of experience, through which our entire lives are led, can be trained. Happiness is a skill.

Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else.

Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

“Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.”

This clunky phrase “nonattachment to results” was my long-sought Holy Grail, the middle path, the marriage of “the price of security” and “the wisdom of insecurity.”

1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

Instead of passing on choppy waters to the next generation, we should endeavor to leave them a calmer sea.

If you can capture the humanity of a family struggling in an economic crisis you can make a difference. You can raise awareness just of the simple humanity.

I wouldn't vote for Obama.

We need art. We've been telling stories since the beginning. As human beings, we need it for our survival.

I had no interest in really becoming an actress or doing that kind of thing... I just knew that I wanted to do something in making films.

Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.

Women need to hear the words, 'It's okay if things don't go exactly the way you want them to.' Give yourself a break!

I grew up in Columbus, Indiana, a kind of industrial and farmland place.

I am better at math than spelling.

Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves?

You feel your game's raised by working with the best people.

When you are up close to an opera singer, hearing this incredible volume of noise coming from a human being - it's beyond belief.

Our intent of how we're going to play doesn't change.

Tax time is the perfect opportunity to jumpstart your spring-cleaning by tackling your financial to-do list.

Most of the media... is positioning the merger with Compaq and the recent actions by Walter Hewlett and David Packard as a fight between the past and the future.

I am a big Vespa enthusiast, and I enjoy the state park aspect of California. It's awfully nice to ride my little scooter through the mountains and then wind up at the ocean.

Teenage years are hard. And, having taught high school for a number of years, I think they're particularly hard on teenage girls. The most self-conscious human beings on the planet are teenage girls.

One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety.

In overcoming prejudice, working together is even more effective than talking together.

I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything.

I want to keep pushing my boundaries. One of the biggest things I learned from 'Unbroken' is that you can go a lot further than you think you can. We often underestimate our actual capabilities.

No good comes from hurrying.