This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
American Author best known for his best-selling novels, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" and "One"
"What was the question? ...Oh. Where do I get my crazy ideas? Answer: sleep-fairy, walk-fairy, shower-fairy. Book-fairy. And in these last few years, from my wife. Now when I have questions I ask her and she tells me the answer. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you want to find your soulmate, as soon as you can. Next question?"
"Whatever enchants, also guides and protects. Passionately obsessed by anything we love - sailboats, airplanes, ideas - an avalanche of magic flattens the way ahead, levels rules, reasons, dissents, bears us with it over chasms, fears, doubts."
"When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life."
"Whatever We Hold in Thought Comes True in Our Experience; Like Attracts Like; we experiment with the Law of Changing Appearances, to make our outer world reflect our inner."
"Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another."
"When you have come to the edge of all the light you have and step into the darkness of the unknown, believe that one of the two will happen to you. Either you'll find something solid to stand on or you'll be taught how to fly! [Often attributed, but not a Richard Bach quote]"
"Wrong turns are as important as right turns. More important, sometimes."
"With every choice you risk the life you would have had; with every decision, you lose it"
"Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more."
"You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past."
"You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are."
"You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. [Often attributed, but not a Richard Bach quote]"
"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however."
"You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past."
"You choose, you live the consequences. Every yes, no, maybe, creates the school you call your personal experience."
"You can achieve a goal; you never really achieve your purpose, because your purpose is ongoing. It never stops."
"You have no birthday because you have always lived; you were never born, and never will die. You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are."
"You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?"
"You either plan for what's ahead or you fight with what you've got: worry is a waste of time."
"You don't want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel."
"Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully."
"You may have to work for it, however."
"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way."
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there."
"You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or different past."
"You're going to die a horrible death, remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind. Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution it not generally understood by less advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy."
"Your friends will know you better in the first minute they meet you than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years."
"You've given up your whole life to be the person you are now. Is it worth it?"
"A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels... and the last thing the world needs is another religion."
"Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose."
"And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
"All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment."