The Exquisite Risk Quotes

“Whether through the patterns left in snow, or geese honking in the dark, or through the brilliant wet leaf that hits your face the moment you are questioning your worth, the quiet teachers are everywhere, pointing us to the unlived portion of our lives. When we think we are in charge, the lessons dissolve as accidents or coincidence. But when we’re humble enough to welcome the connections, the glass that breaks across the room is offering us direction, giving us a clue to the story we are in.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“And where is home? Is it where we begin or where we end up? Is it where we long to be or where life puts us to make good use of our gifts?”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“As Martin Luther King Jr. prophesied, “I believe what the self-centered have torn down, the other-centered will build up.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“Whatever is held and listened to will show us where it lives in the world and in us.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“Fearful people do not want to sit with broken people because they don't want to be slowed down - don't want to look at what is broken in themselves...

When we dare to hold those forced to the ground, dare to hold them close, the truth of holding and listening sings & we are carried into the wisdom of broken bones and how things heal.

There are the quiet braves we all need: the courage to wait & watch with all of who we are, the courage to admit that we are not alone, the courage to hold each other to the ear of our heart and the courage to care for things that are broken.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“Because we must meet the outer world with our inner world or existence will crush us. It is a spiritual law, as real as gravity. If we don’t assume our space as living beings, the rest of life will fill us completely the way water fills a hole.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“These are quiet braveries we all need: The courage to wait and watch with all of who we are. The courage to admit that we are not alone. The courage to hold each other to the ear of our heart. And the courage to care for things that are broken.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“Since speed and confidence are the traits of success we are taught to strive with, it takes added courage to welcome time and humility into our lives.”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

“I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, Or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, But because it never forgot what it could do. —NAOMI SHIHAB NYE I was recently in San Francisco,”
― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life