Marion Milner

“The moments of happiness were moments when I was not aware of myself, but was absorbed in some objective interest.”

“I had to learn to trust the unconscious, to let it do its work.”

“The 'wide-open' attention was a state of mind in which I was receptive to whatever came.”

“The more I tried to control, the less I was in control.”

“My task was not to create, but to allow.”

“The only way to be happy is to be wanting what you have.”

“It was not a matter of what I could do, but of what I could be.”

“What I must do is die to my own desires... I must be a channel, an instrument, and the more I am annihilated the more I am in possession of my own life.”

“My prayer became 'use me'.”

“The essence of the experience was a sense of wholeness.”

“For I was beginning to see that if I wanted to have a happy life I must be sure that what I wanted was what I really wanted.”

“I learned that the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it.”

“It was the moments of 'not-knowing' that were the most fruitful.”

“My real self was not the one that was trying so hard, but the one that was content to be.”

“I was beginning to learn that my life was my own responsibility.”

“I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know.”

“I was beginning to see that my body had a wisdom of its own.”

“I was discovering that the best way to learn was to be a fool.”