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Untamed

Book by Glennon Doyle · 33 quotes · Be Yourself, Gefühle Zulassen, Bravery

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Untamed Quotes

“We can make our own normal. We can throw out all the rules and write our own. We can build our lives from the inside out. We can stop asking what the world wants from us and instead ask ourselves what we want for our world. We can stop looking at what’s in front of us long enough to discover what’s inside us. We can remember and unleash the life-changing, relationship-changing, world-changing power of our own imagination. It might take us a lifetime. Luckily, a lifetime is exactly how long we have.”

“I went to grab the perfect shade of green and realized I didn’t have it. How could bamboo be colored with primary green? I blew out a frustrated breath and looked back into the box. Rand was crouched beside me, his hand resting gently on my back. His touch was light but also strong and reassuring. I couldn’t help but lean into him, even if I swore to myself I wasn’t. “What’s wrong?” “This green isn’t right for the bamboo.” Because that was the most normal sentence I’d ever uttered. “What about these colors?” he pulled out a pink crayon, then a blue, and finally a purple. “Bamboo is green! But it isn’t primary green.” To his credit, Rand didn’t look at me like I had four heads. But then again, he picked up the blue crayon and handed it to me. “I think blue and pink and purple bamboo would be perfect.” My mouth hung open, and I tried to argue. “No! No, it’s not.” Rand rubbed his hand over my head. “Kyle, it’s coloring in a children’s coloring book. You aren’t entering this into an art contest. It can be blue and purple and yellow and orange if you want it to be. It can be out of the lines, it can be scribbles on the page. You aren’t trying to imitate life right now. You’re coloring a picture that I can hang on the fridge and we can smile at.” “The fridge?” “I’m going to take the green away completely if you keep worrying about it.” I gasped in horror. “You wouldn’t!” I needed the green. Rand raised an eyebrow at me, asking me if I wanted to push it. I shut my mouth quickly and picked up the light-blue color he was holding out to me. Could bamboo really be light blue? I bit my lip as I put the blue to the paper and colored the first few lines in smooth up and down motions. “It’s going to be beautiful,” Rand gushed. He was over exaggerating, but I felt myself swell with pride.”

“What if I have come to see same-gender love as a really solid choice—just a brilliant idea? Something I would highly recommend? And what if I demand freedom not because I was “born this way” and “can’t help it” but because I can do whatever I choose to do with my love and my body from year to year, moment to moment—because I’m a grown woman who does not need any excuse to live however I want to live and love whomever I want to love? What if I don’t need your permission slip because I’m already free?”

“His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath against my skin. His scent was familiar, and it was that familiarity that decided me. Instead of pulling away from him or continuing with the improv and 'fainting' in his arms to pretend I was dead, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into me, closing the short distance between our lips. I kissed him with everything in me. I put all my pain and sorrow and passion and love for him into that kiss, and his mouth opened under mine, meeting me passion for passion, pain for pain, and love for love. And then the stupid bell rang.”

“Each of us was born to bring forth something new that has never existed: a way of being, a family, an idea, art, a community - something brand-new. We are here to fully introduce ourselves, to impose ourselves and ideas and thoughts and dreams onto the world, leaving it changed forever by who we are and what we bring forth from our depths. So we cannot contort ourselves to fit into the visible order. We must unleash ourselves and watch the world reorder itself in front of our eyes.”

“Tish senses. Even as the world tries to speed by her, she is slowly taking it in. Wait, stop. That thing you said about the polar bears…it made me feel something and wonder something. Can we stay there for a moment? I have feelings. I have questions. I’m not ready to run outside to recess yet. In most cultures, folks like Tish are identified early, set apart as shamans, medicine people, poets, and clergy. They are considered eccentric but critical to the survival of the group because they are able to hear things others don’t hear and see things others don’t see and feel things others don’t feel. The culture depends on the sensitivity of a few, because nothing can be healed if it’s not sensed first. But our society is so hell-bent on expansion, power, and efficiency at all costs that the folks like Tish—like me—are inconvenient. We slow the world down. We’re on the bow of the Titanic, pointing, crying out, “Iceberg! Iceberg!” while everyone else is below deck, yelling back, “We just want to keep dancing!” It is easier to call us broken and dismiss us than to consider that we are responding appropriately to a broken world. My little girl is not broken. She is a prophet. I want to be wise enough to stop with her, ask her what she feels, and listen to what she knows.”

“She married him anyway, because she was thirty-five years old and getting married is what she was supposed to do.She married him anyway, because there were so many people she would have disspaointed if she had called it off.There was only one of her, so she dissapointed herself instead.She said "I do" while her insides said "I don't", and then she spent and then she spent the next decade trying not to know what she knew: that she had betrayed herself and that her life would not really begin until she stopped betraying herself.”

“Every philanthropist, if she is paying attention, eventually becomes an activist. If we do not, we risk becoming codependent with power -- saving the system's victims while the system collects the profits, then pats us on the head for her service. We've become injustice's foot soldiers. In order to avoid being complicit with those upstream, we must become the people of And/Both. We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront, and hold accountable those who are pushing them in.”