Anne Morrow Lindbergh Quotes

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other.

Purposeful giving is not as apt to deplete one's resources; it belongs to that natural order of giving that seems to renew itself even in the act of depletion.

America, which has the most glorious present still existing in the world today, hardly stops to enjoy it, in her insatiable appetite for the future.

The collector walks with blinders on; he sees nothing but the prize. In fact, the acquisitive instinct is incompatible with true appreciation of beauty.

We must relearn to be alone.

How hard it is to have the beautiful interdependence of marriage and yet be strong in oneself alone.

How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity.

The present is passed over in the race for the future; the here is neglected in favor of the there. Enjoy the moment, even if it means merely a walk in the country.

I want to be pure in heart -- but I like to wear my purple dress.

Who is not afraid of pure space - that breathtaking empty space of an open door?

Woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.

And if flying, like a glass-bottomed bucket, can give you that vision, that seeing eye, which peers down on the still world below the choppy waves - it will always remain magic.

I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.

Love is a force.... It is not a result; it is a cause. It is not a product; it produces.

And one perfect day can give clues for a more perfect life.

But I want first of all- in fact, as an end to these other desires- to be at peace with myself.

Duration is not a test of truth or falsehood.

there is no aristocracy of grief. Grief is a great leveler.

The ball of rumor and criticism, once it starts rolling, is difficult to stop.

My Life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.

Fame separates you from life.

Communication with another person -- wasn't it the realest thing in life?

Failures aren't failures if you learn something from them.

The world has been forced to its knees. Unhappily, we seldom find our way there without being beaten to it by suffering.

Ideally, both members of a couple in love free each other to new and different worlds.

If it is a woman's function to give, she must be replenished, too.

... once you get beyond the crust of the first pang it is all the same and you can easily bear it. It is just the transition from painlessness to pain that is so terrible.

Can you write a book and have children at the same time? Yes, if you're content to do it very very slowly.

Woman must come of age by herself... She must find her true center alone.

For the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication.

Woman must be the pioneer in this turning inward for strength. In a sense, she has always been the pioneer.

No new sect ever had humor; no disciples either, even the disciples of Christ.

... the most ordinary everyday living is as delicate, as breath-taking, as difficult, takes as terrific physical and mental control and effort, as walking a tightrope.

Packing is chiefly planning -- if it is

These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line - all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her.

To be deeply in love is, of course, a great liberating force.

For in our family an experience was not finished, not truly experienced, unless written down or shared with another.

It is only framed in space that beauty blooms; only in space are events, and objects and people unique and significant and therefore beautiful.

The nicest gifts are those left, nameless and quiet, unburdened with love, or vanity, or the desire for attention.

Fame is a kind of death because it arrests life around the person in the public eye.

Frenchwomen just never look ungroomed, do they?

war is a thug's game. The thug strikes first and harder. He doesn't go by rules and he isn't afraid of hurting people.

Why do progress and beauty have to be so opposed?

Cut asparagus at night - in desperation. When one is very tired one always does one more thing.

the issue of war or peace is an issue that concerns not only experts on Foreign Affairs but every citizen of the United States.

I find the weight of air/Almost too great to bear.

Guys kick friendship all over just like a soccer, nonetheless it does not appear to crack. Girls deal with it like glass and it goes to items.

Woman can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.