R. Peck Quotes

It is not easy for us to change. But it is possible and it is our glory as human beings

I can remember years ago sitting on my bed and suddenly thinking, "I am God."

Teach us to number our days aright.

There is no virtue inherent in un-constructive suffering.

Consciousness is the foundation of all thinking; and thinking is the foundation of all consciousness.

Although I was raised in a profoundly secular home, I had a belief, an awareness of God, from as far back as I can remember.

The system gives you two minutes to phrase a whole history.

There are only one or two geniuses every century.

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

I just hope that my films will survive me.

[James] Baldwin is needed even more today because he helps you focus to the essential, to what is important.

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

Today, I don't even think that people like [James Baldwin] are possible. He would not have that much room.

Your tweet is as important as if you would have written a Ph.D. [dissertation] on the subject.

Why would anything change that has not been changed since the existence of cinema? [James] Baldwin somehow wakes you up to reality. It takes you out of the dream - or out of the nightmare.

[James] Baldwin said the real question is not when there will be the first Negro president in this country. The important question is what country he's going to be the president of.

The role James Baldwin played in my life is incommensurable as stated above. He helped, along with a few others, to shape the man that I am today. My debt to him is invaluable.

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

Grandma, how old is she?" "Oh I don't know." Grandma said. "You'd have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck.

I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready

With the poetry of plain speaking, Shannon Hitchcock recreates the daily drama of a vanished world.

Martin Wilson's What They Always Tell Us hears the voices of the young as they struggle toward adulthood.

Writers, good ones, don't tell stories. Characters show stories.

Life is difficult.

[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody.

Never worry about a book corrupting a child. Worry if your children are not getting ideas from books.

The only true end of love is spiritual growth or human evolution.

Stay away from people who don't know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who'll want to label you. People who'll try to write their fears on your face.

Freedom, if it emerges like magic from consciousness (like the conjuring of consciousness itself!) seems best recognized in the choices made for love.

If an act is not one of work or courage, then it is not an act of love. There are no exceptions.

In the tide pool I was riveted by fat pink sea stars sitting like satisfied gangsters and seemingly unconcerned by their exposure

Most people want peace without the aloneness of [spiritual] power. And they want the self-confidence of adulthood without having to grow up.

As I pen these words to leave a lasting record, I wonder myself where it all began.

Fiction isn't what 'was'. It's 'what if'?

It is so hard to stay afloat in a world that just wants to drown you.

You must have something in order to give it up.

It is their attachment to us rather than their independence from us that we value in our pets.

Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process.

The will to grow is in essence the same phenomenon as love. Love is the will to extend oneself for spiritual growth. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.

Never miss a chance...to keep your mouth shut.

Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after.

A life of Wisdom must be a life of contemplation and action

Remember you are never really alone. Although it may feel like it for very long stretches of time.

Whatever action we take may influence the course of civilization.

Beware the soft-spoken when secrets are kept, for they hear what the thunderers do not.

For any single thing of importance, there are multiple reasons.

When everything is said and done, the only thing that really matters is the quality of the soul you build during the life you're given.

Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.

International aid as a means of development is a major failure, and not just in Haiti.