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Quote by Glennon Doyle

“In every family, culture, or religion, ideas of right and wrong are the hot cattle prods, the barking sheepdogs that keep the masses in the herd. They are the bars that keep us caged. I decided that if I kept doing the "right" thing, I would spend my life following someone else's directions instead of my own. I didn't want to live my life without living my life. I wanted to make my own decision as a free woman, from my soul.”

Quote by Glennon Doyle

Work

Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living / A Toolkit for Modern Life

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Author

Glennon Doyle

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“Model yourself after great men and women, but never imitate. Aspire to be and do like them, but never desire to be them. Be a student, not a follower. Achieve your own greatness through your own uniqueness. Be a leader.”

“...be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again.”

“It reminds me of sitting window seat on a plane. I look out and onto the ground and I see everyone’s little houses. They’ve got their own perfect square of land, with a roof of their own, with a tree of their own, their own fence. There’s something so artificial to it when you zoom out. Our own tree in the front yard may be large, but they aren’t rooted in a true forest. Their house could be painted gold, but the street isn’t. Everything we have is just enough for our eyes to see. I feel like we’re meant for more. More than decorations. Sometimes, even though I know it’s not possible, I feel like everyone deserves their own forest.”

“There was a car in the back of the lot, under a fruitful tree. Feet on the steering wheel was a beautiful woman who sought and received harmony. She didn’t measure time by hours or minutes. She measured it by phrases like, “After this glass of red.” She never stopped the car until “the right final song plays.” She didn’t count her days Monday–Friday, but existence to her was checkpointed by the names of people she met last. She didn’t listen to rules about when it was okay to fuck—the first date or third—because when the moments asked for love, she had it. She didn’t sleep when it was dark, she slept when she was fully exhausted, and so worked until drainage, trusting her body was smart enough to solve itself during sleep. She was sleeping right now—aged with the kind of thin wrinkles that told you resveratrol gave a good fight. This was a woman embracing the wild, various interests of the heart. You may have thought freedom was attained by irresponsibility, by the immature seeking the easy, but it took great discipline to be free. You could call her homeless or you could call her earthbound, indecisive or multi-talented, unemployed or honest, spacey or intelligent. What good were words to describe a kind of radiant harmony best explained by her accomplished snoring?”

“People don’t know what to do when they encounter someone different. History hides a whole world of talented people we have never known because bright minds surrendered to the advice of small thinkers. “You got a great voice, kid—now go check on the cattle and don’t forget to lock the entrance.” And you spent so much time trying to convince everyone to appreciate some small idea or gift. They won’t know. They will never understand ideas until they happen. They don’t believe in start-ups, but love success stories. They won’t encourage your singing career, but love the radio. We ought to fly away from everyone and everything and right when we’ve launched far enough in space to risk no return, we can then come back to earth as us.”