Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“You must become an activist if you are going to live the natural life.”

“To reasoned people, almost everything is understandable, but evil is forever incomprehensible.”

“People used to grow up in small communities where folk wisdom was passed down. But we don't live there anymore. We can't go next door to your aunt and ask her for the answers.”

“We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.”

“There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only...”

“In our time, there are still many, like those in the Good Samaritan story, who being of the religious classes in that time, purposely crossed to the other side of the road, and passed by the...”

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”

“Our own sorrows seem heavy enough, even when lifted by certain long-term joys. But watching others hurt is the breaker of most any heart.”

“Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags, and crazy people.”

“Than Shwe ordered the confiscation of all cell phones and laptops and computers so no reportage could come out of Burma. It seemed clear that a demon, something diabolical, rather than somet...”

“How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothi...”

“Many people have trouble with forgiveness because they have been taught it is a singular act to be completed in one sitting. That is not so. Forgiveness has many layers, many seasons.”

“The drive toward Life is protective, thoughtful, vulnerable, and invested in immaculate love. It is this last that marks the difference between a wise heart muddy with real life experiences...”

“Cynicism means the conduit to the soul has a great kink in it, like a garden hose in which nothing flows in either direction.”

“Forgive: Make a conscious decision to cease to harbor resentment, which includes forgiving a debt and giving up one's resolve to retaliate.”

“Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack. Y...”

“I became married at a young age and had two daughters and divorced at 26. I had to go on welfare to make ends meet. I had no way to support myself.”

“This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.”

“I am built close to the ground and of extravagant body.”

“When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a make...”