Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.

He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.

In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but are one reality.

The shot will go smoothly only when it takes the archer himself by surprise.

The more a human being feels himself a self, tries to intensify this self and reach a never-attainable perfection, the more drastically he steps out of the center of being.

The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfilment, but brace yourself for failure.

By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension .

You must act as if the goal were infinitely far off.

Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft.

This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.

The man, the art, the work--it is all one.

So what if you believe it can’t be done. Stop trying to prevent those who do believe from reaching for the stars.

So great was my joy in God that I took no heed of looking at the angels and the saints because all their goodness and all their beauty was from Him and in Him.

Some things can't be changed. They'll always happen the way they were supposed to.

People started coining the phrase, 'Bubba Golf,' whatever you want to call it, which I like. 'Bubba Golf' is going to be fun. I mean, why do what everybody else does? That's boring.

The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand.

The cookie maker needs someone to look out for him.

Leave the wrong done by another where the wrong arose.

If I could wish for immortality on earth, it would only be for the power of relieving the distressed.

Either you make a mark on the world, or the world will make a mark on you.

The students realize that it's their life I'm talking about: it's out of balance, they're struggling to put it into balance. How are they going to do it?