Hi!
I am currently going through the adoption process as a single mother and would love to have some quotes that basically say its ok to think non-traditionally, if that makes sense..? I know being a single adoptive mother isnt the most traditional thing to do so looking at some intresting quotes on ways to word it..thanks so much!

Hi Adoptmom,

Congratulations on deciding to adopt. One of my best friends who is a divorced single woman in India, adopted a baby girl last september. Its been a very fulfilling experience for her, and all of us too, as we've been a part of this very unconventional decision right from the beginning. I am sure if my friend can do it in India (which is an extremely traditional country so to speak) you could do it too. Best luck and much happiness. and now for the quotes:

***

“It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set”
-- William Somerset Maugham

If you take responsibility for what you are doing to yourself, how you produce your symptoms, how you produce your illness, how you produce your existence — the very moment you get in touch with yourself—growth begins, integration begins.
-- Fritz Perls

A conformist is a man who declares, "It's true because others believe it" - but an individualist is not a man who declares, "it's true because I believe it." An individualist declares, "I believe it because I see in reason that it's true."
-- Ayn Rand, from Virtue of Selfishness. Pg. 160

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.
-- Jon Krakaeur, from Into the Wild, Pg. 57

Whoso would be a man must also be a non-conformist.
-– Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Essays: First Series

But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation ...
–- Rumi, “Unfold Your Own Myth”

Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.
-– Anaïs Nin

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-–Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

My darling girl, when are you going to understand that “normal” isn’t a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.
-– Stockard Channing, from Practical Magic

He ... knew, in that instant, that his life would not be an easy one—he was different, he looked different, he thought differently.
-– Alan Cumming, from Tommy’s Tale

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.
-- Norman Mailer

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.
-- Fritz Perls

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause.
-- Clarence Darrow, from Resist Not Evil


It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Self-Reliance," 1841

My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others! My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I'd not do so.
-- Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I’m already under
and living within the ocean.
–- Rumi, from an untitled piece in Coleman Barks’s The Essential Rumi

Blessed are those who believe in something larger than self to give life meaning and lower blood pressure. For some it is God, for others nature, for others the creation of something that we throw our whole being into—a poem, a song, a dance, a painting. Whatever gets you to transcend self and merge with a larger entity, pursue it with a vengeance.
-- Sharon Heller, PhD, from Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight

From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way.
-- Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes


...more laterz!! Have a good life.

-
much love, light and laughter,
ananya.

There's an alternative. There's always a third way, and it's not a combination of the other two ways. It's a different way.
~David Carradine

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
~Billy Wilder

I once complained to my father that I didn't seem to be able to do things the way other people did. Dad's advice? “Margo, don't be a sheep. People hate sheep. They eat sheep.”
~Margo Kaufman

You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh because you are all the same.
~Daniel Knode

If I shall be like him, who shall be like me?
~Leo Rosten

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, how ever measured or far away.
~Henry David Thoreau

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
~Mark Twain

Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it.
~Paul Vixie

Don't take anyone else's definition of success as your own.
~Jacqueline Briskin

Well behaved women seldom make history.
~Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.
~Christopher Morley

People talk about “dysfunctional” families; I've never seen any other kind.
~Sue Grafton

Family isn't about who's blood you have. It's about who you care about.
~Trey Parker and Matt Stone

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites for sanity.
~Oscar Wilde

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.
~H. Jackson Brown

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
~Walt Disney

Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it!
~Robert Heinlein

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, they make them.
~George Bernard Shaw

You see things and ask “Why?”; I dream things that never were and ask “Why not?”
~George Bernard Shaw