CADE HILDRETH

GLENNON DOYLE

107
WITTIEST
AND
WISEST
QUOTES
 01

ABOUT
GLENNON DOYLE

Glennon Doyle is a blogger,

author, speaker and activist.
She has authored three books,
the first two which were the
New York Times best-sellers:
Love Warrior and Carry On,
Warrior.

On March 10, 2020, she

released her latest
book, Untamed, which rapidly
ascended to best-seller status
as well, despite a global
pandemic that was creating
worldwide lockdowns.

Glennon also founded the

nonprofit Together Rising, and
runs the wildly popular
blog, Momastery.com which
she launched in 2009.
 02

In her writing, Glennon has had

the courage to reveal all about
her life, including the dark,
gritty parts nearly everyone
would hide. She shares her
struggles with bulimia, alcohol,
drugs, mental health, sex, and
relationships, including her ex-
husband’s infidelity and a porn
addiction that dated back to
his early childhood.

She has also been forthright

about her May 14, 2017
marriage to former U.S. Soccer
Player, Abby Wambach and
their process of creating a new
beautiful, blended, modern
family.

It is this honesty and

transparency that has allowed
Glennon to create a zealous
community of followers,
including 609K
on Instagram and 755K
on Facebook. It is also why I
have enormous respect for her
art, her wisdom, and her
activism.
 03

107 OF THE BEST 

GLENNON DOYLE
QUOTES OF ALL-TIME

1 “The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not
advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the
future, just love.”

2 “You are not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it’s
hard. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it hurts for
everybody. Don’t avoid the pain. You need it. It’s meant for you. Be
still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you’ll
burn to get your work done on this earth.”

“When her pain is fresh and new, let her have it. Don’t try to take it
3
away. Forgive yourself for not having that power. Grief and pain
are like joy and peace; they are not things we should try to snatch
from each other. They’re sacred. They are part of each person’s
journey. All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am all alone.
That’s the one fear you can alleviate.”

“The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to

4
surrender to. It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we
promise not to tidy up.”

“We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide
5
whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves
to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every
girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world.
Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for
love.”
 04

6 “Addiction is a hiding place where sensitive people go. I was a

super sensitive kid—addiction is where I went to hide from risk, to
hide from pain, to hide from love.”

7 “If our goal is to be tolerant of people who are different than we

are, then we really are aiming quite low. Traffic jams are to be
tolerated. People are to be celebrated.”

8
“People who are hurting don’t need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers.
What we need are patient, loving witness. People to sit quietly and
hold space for us. People to stand in helpful vigil to our pain.”

“I understand now that I’m not a mess, but a deeply feeling person
9
in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I
cry so often: “For the same reason I laugh so often – because I’m
paying attention.”

“We can choose to be perfect and admired or to be real and loved.

10
We must decide.”

“People who need help sometimes look a lot like people who don’t
11
need help.”

12
1
“What if pain – like love – is just a place where brave people visit?”

“What I Know: 1. What you don’t know, you’re not supposed to

13
know yet. 2. More will be revealed. 3 Crisis means to sift. Let it all
fall away and you’ll be left with what matters. 4. What matters
most cannot be taken away. 5. Just do the next right thing one
thing at a time. That’ll take you all the way home.”

“If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or

14 sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough.
Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else
can offer: yourself.”
 05

15 “In all my close friendships, words are the bricks I use to build
bridges. To know someone I need to hear her, and to feel known, I
need to be heard by her. The process of knowing and loving
another person happens for me through conversation. I reveal
something to help my friend understand me, she responds in a way
that assures me she values my revelation, and then she adds
something to help me understand her. This back-and-forth is
repeated again and again as we go deeper into each other’s
hearts, minds, pasts, and dreams. Eventually, a friendship is built –
a solid, sheltering structure that exists in the space between us – a
space outside of ourselves that we can climb deep into. There is
her, there is me, and then there is our friendship – this bridge
we’ve built together.”

16 “What if in skipping the pain, I was missing my lessons?”

“The sun shows up every morning, no matter how bad you’ve been
17
the night before. It shines without judgment. It never withholds. It
warms the sinners, the saints, the druggies, the cheerleaders—the
saved and the heathens alike. You can hide from the sun, but it
won’t take you personally. It’ll never, ever punish you for hiding.
You can stay in the dark for years or decades, and when you
finally step outside, it’ll be there.”

“We think our job as humans is to avoid pain, our job as parents is
18
to protect our children from pain, and our job as friends is to fix
each other’s pain. Maybe that’s why we all feel like failures so
often – because we all have the wrong job description for love.”

“Life is hard—not because we’re doing it wrong, just because it’s

19 hard.”

“It’s ok to feel too much and know too little.”

20
 06

21 “You have been offered ‘the gift of crisis’. As Kathleen Norris

reminds us, the Greek root of the word crisis is “to sift”, as in, to
shake out the excesses and leave only what’s important. That’s
what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on
to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”

22 “Our culture was built upon and benefits from the control of
women. The way power justifies controlling a group is by
conditioning the masses to believe that the group cannot be
trusted. So the campaign to convince us to mistrust women begins
early and comes from everywhere.”

23
“Wherever you go, there you are. Your emptiness goes with you.
Maddening. Things that help: writing, reading, water, walks,
forgiving myself every other minute, practicing easy yoga, taking
deep breaths, and petting my dogs. These things don’t fill me
completely, but they remind me that it is not my job to fill myself.
It’s just my job to notice my emptiness and find graceful ways to
live as a broken, unfilled human.
If there’s a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable is
what brings people together. I’ve never made a friend by bragging
about my strengths, but I’ve made countless by sharing my
weakness and my emptiness.”

24 “I have met my self and I am going to care for her fiercely.”

“Reading is my inhale and writing is my exhale.”

25

“Grief and pain are like joy and peace; they are not things we
26
should try to snatch from each other. They’re sacred.”

“Kind people are brave people. Brave is not something you should
27 wait to feel. Brave is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is
more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the
crowd.”
 07

28 “I think one of the keys to happiness is accepting that I am never

going to be perfectly happy. Life is uncomfortable. So I might as
well get busy loving the people around me. I’m going to stop trying
so hard to decide whether they are the “right people” for me and
just take deep breaths and love my neighbors. I’m going to take
care of my friends. I’m going to find peace in the ‘burbs. I’m going
to quit chasing happiness long enough to notice it smiling right at
me.”

“The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not
29
advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the
future, just love.”

“The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to

30
surrender to. It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we
promise not to tidy up.”

31 “Life is brutal, but it’s also beautiful. Life is Brutiful.”

“Since brokenness is the way of folks, the only way to live

32
peacefully is to forgive everyone constantly, including yourself.”

“Because love is not something for which to search or wait or hope

33
or dream. Its simply something to do.”

“We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part
34
of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our
natural state is bad and dangerous.”

“That’s how you can tell that you’re filling yourself with the wrong
35
things. You use a lot of energy, and in the end, you feel emptier
and less comfortable than ever.”
 08

36
“My courage will come from knowing I can handle whatever I
encounter there — because I was designed by my creator to not
only survive pain and love but also to become whole inside it. I was
born to do this. I am a Warrior.”

37 “God approaches us in the disguise of other people.”

38 “You can never get enough of what you don’t need.”

39 “Stop making parenthood harder by pretending its not hard.”

“The secret of life is not about knowing what to say or do. It’s not
40
about doing love or loss right. Life cannot be handled. The secret
is simply to show up. It’s about witnessing it all, even the pain, and
letting it touch you and make you not harder, but more tender.
Showing up, feeling it all—this is my new kind of prayer. I call it
praying attention, and it’s how, for me, everything turns holy.”

“When people express opinions that differ from yours, take it as a

41
chance to grow. Seek to understand over being understood. Be
curious, not defensive. The only way to disarm another human
being is by listening.”

“Sometimes the rewards of risk don’t leave us wrecked. Sometimes

42
we find our passion, our purpose, courage, connection, and
comfort. Every good thing in our lives is a direct result of risk.”

“My purpose is clearer today than it has been in years: Love,

43
Courage, Truth.”

“Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is
44
the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love
was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price.”
 09

45 “Rock bottom is the end of what wasn’t true enough. Begin again
and build something Truer. Love, G”

46 “Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyway.”

47 “I used to numb my feelings and hide. Now I feel my feelings and

share.”

48 “That’s how you can tell that you’re filling yourself with the wrong
things. You use a lot of energy, and in the end, you feel emptier
and less comfortable than ever.”

49 “We have to get back into our own bodies and figure out what the
hell we want to do. And then the next step is doing it without
explaining ourselves.”

“The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not
50
advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the
future, just love.”

“Maybe the yes comes before the readiness. Maybe you say yes
51
and then you become equipped to handle whatever is about to
happen.”

“I notice we are envious of people who are already doing what we

52
are made to do. If we use our envy as a sort of an arrow pointing
us toward our destiny, that is a beautiful thing.”

“If there’s a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable
53
is what brings people together. I’ve never made a friend by
bragging about my strengths, but I’ve made countless by sharing
my weakness and my emptiness.”

“I just think there are as many different versions of feminism as

54
there are women. Feminism has to be defined as freedom.”
 10

55 “Being a mother is a little like ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ It’s getting out of

bed and doing the exact same things again and again and yet
again – and it’s watching it all get undone again and again and yet
again. It’s humbling, monotonous, mind-numbing, and solitary.”

56
“Teachers: you are doing the holiest, hardest work on earth.
Nobody is more important than the ones who hold our babies in
their hands and hearts all day.”

57 “Your river is strong. Let it flow.”

58 “If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or

sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough.
Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else
can offer: yourself.”

“Life has valleys and mountains and the people who won’t let
59
themselves experience the agony of being in the valley also don’t
get to experience the ecstasy of the mountains.”

“Progress through something traumatic, it’s not linear. It’s not like
60
we go from unhealthy to healthy, failure to success. I think it’s all
circular. You just come back around to the same pain, and the
same loneliness. But each time you come around, you’re stronger
from the climb.”

“If no pain, then no love. If no darkness, no light. If no risk, then no

61
reward. It’s all or nothing. In this damn world, it’s all or nothing.”

“The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It’s not brave to refuse to

62
pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and
imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that’s no
badge of honor.”
 11

63 “Self-love means that I have a relationship with myself built on

trust and loyalty. I trust myself to have my own back, so my
allegiance is to the voice within.”

64 “Nobody is more ready to show up than anybody else. It’s just that
some people show up before they’re perfect and before they’re
ready.”

65 “Since the day I decided to become sober and a mother, I’ve been
trying to become who I am supposed to be.”

66
“Your not a mess. You’re a deeply feeling person in a messy
world.”

“I’ll abandon everyone else’s expectations of me before I’ll

67
abandon myself. I’ll disappoint everyone else before I’ll disappoint
myself. I’ll forsake all others before I’ll forsake myself. Me and
myself: We are till death do us part.”

“Don’t let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid

68
that you forget you already have one.”

“There is always more on its way – more opportunities, more ideas,

69
more love. Know that there is enough. Know that you are enough.
Know that you have enough.”

“I learned that I need to move toward the pain. Pain doesn’t go

70
away. If you don’t embrace it, it will be passed onto someone else,
usually those around you.”

“Loves, listen to me: The wounded become the healers. Your pain
71
will not be wasted. Trust it. Be brave enough to be still in it and
you’ll learn that your pain will NOT consume you. It will become
the fire you burn to light and warm the world.”
 12

72 “I feel like I numbed my feelings for so long because I felt like I

couldn’t handle them. I left like the pain would be too much and
the beauty would be too much. I learned to be fully present with
the areas of my life that are brutal and the areas that are
beautiful. It feels like, I am doing this human thing.”

73 “The culture depends on the sensitivity of a few, because nothing

can be healed if it’s not sensed first.”

74 “Sister each other, because sistering is the best part of life.”

75 “Can you imagine? The epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self

completely. That is the end goal of every patriarchal culture.
Because a very effective way to control women is to convince
women to control themselves.”

76 “These things will be hard, but you can do hard things.”

77
“Love is the opposite of control. Love demands trust.”

“I had been deceived. The only thing that was ever wrong with me
78
was my belief that there was something wrong with me.”

“I think the way to get to any place worth going and any person
79
worth knowing is love. Keep it simple today. I love you.”

“We can either control our selves or love our selves, but we can’t
80
do both.”

“I see your pain and it is difficult and it is hard, but it was made
81
just for you and I also see that your courage is greater than your
fear.”

“Loving fiercely and grieving deeply are often two halves of the
82
same whole.”
 13

83 “If you are standing with other women in a circle and there is a
woman standing alone in your circles vicinity – the thing to do is
notice her, smile at her, move over a bit and say, ‘Hi, come join us!’
Even if she decides to not join your circle, or looks at you like you
are crazy – inviting her is still the thing to do. This advice is meant
for both literal and figurative circles. Widen your circle. All the
times. Always leave space.”

84 “Service and art are the two things that have saved me.”

85 “You are not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it’s
hard. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it hurts for
everybody. Don’t avoid the pain. You need it. It’s meant for you. Be
still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you’ll
burn to get your work done on this earth.”

“There isn’t anyone who isn’t recovering from something. Alcohol,

86
drugs, over-eating, perfectionism, anxiety, unkindness,
something.”

“The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to

87
surrender to. It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we
promise not to tidy up.”

“Life is a conversation. Make it a good one.”

88

“In response to the world’s problems, it is easy to choose silence.

89
Anger. I get it, but it’s not the right way. The third way is to create,
to create a better invitation.”

“I hated writing ‘Love Warrior.’ It’s the hardest thing I’ve every
90
written. I cried so much.”
 14

91
“As a recovering addict, I know that shame is the kiss of death. It’s
not the pain that takes us out of the game, it’s the shame that
takes us out of the game. Part of the shame killing for me is
actually pulling out what is true and secret and scary and dark on
the inside and pulling out into the light, so that other people can
see it. Inevitably, enough people will say, ‘Me too.'”

“What I want to be, girls, is beautiful. Beautiful means ‘full of

92
beauty.’ Beautiful is not about how you look on the outside.
Beautiful is about what you’re made of. Beautiful people spend
time discovering what their idea of beauty on this earth is. They
know themselves well enough to know what they love, and they
love themselves enough to fill up with a little of their particular
kind of beauty each day.”

“One day we will finally see that when we reject any person or
93
group of people, we reject a part of our very selves. All are one. All
are in. All are God’s beloved children with a place at the table.”

94
“Just show up, be brave, be kind, rest, try again.”

95
“Love is kind, right? It’s not about calling someone out on every
little thing you feel.”

“The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement

96
and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We
get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away
all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or
grab or hoard.”

“I understand myself differently now. I was just a caged girl made

97
for wide-open skies.”

“Just do the next right thing one thing at a time. That’ll take you
98 all the way home.”
 15

99 “Be still and breathe and wait for the clouds and fear to pass.
Rock bottom is the beginning of any honest life, any spiritual
journey.Truth is grace and grace makes no exceptions. Grace and
worthiness are yours for the taking. Just as I am, I’m loved just as I
am.”

100 “Keep your head down and keep Love Working. Love without
‘feeling it’ or ‘meaning it.”

“I’ve done my research and learned this: Ten is when we learn how
101
to be good girls and real boys. Ten is when children begin to hide
who they are in order to become what the world expects them to
be. Right around ten is when we begin to internalize our formal
taming. Ten is when the world sat me down, told me to be quiet,
and pointed toward my cages.”

102 “Change the narrative of what it means to be a family.”

103 “I’m nothing if not a tangled, colorful ball of contradictions.”

104 “I think of love and marriage, in the same way, I do plants: We

have perennials and annuals. The perennial plant blooms go away
and come back. The annual blooms for just a season, and then
winter arrives and takes it out for good. But it’s still enriched the
soil for the next flower to bloom. In the same way, no love is
wasted.”

“What the world needs is more women who have quit fearing
105
themselves and started trusting themselves. What the world needs
is masses of women who are entirely out of control.”

“My courage comes from knowing I can handle whatever I

106
encounter. I was born to do this.”

Bring all of yourself to life. And if you're told you're 'too much' -
107 smile and think: Maybe. Or maybe their capacity is too small?