In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.
I would like to gratefully acknowledge all the writers I have quoted from for their wisdom, comfort, and inspiration. An exhaustive search was done to determine whether previously published material included in this book required permission to reprint. If there has been an error, I apologize and a correction will be made in subsequent editions.
ABKCO Music Inc.: From Sitting On a Fence written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. 1966 Renewed 1994 ABKCO Music Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Artisan: From Late Bloomers by Brendan Gill. Text copyright 1996 by Brendan Gill. Used by permission of Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing Co., Inc. New York.
Victor Gollancz Ltd.: From The Diary of Tolstoys Wife, 18601892, by S. A. Tolstaia, tr. by Alexander Werth. Reprinted by permission of the publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd.
HarperCollins Publishers: From Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John ODonohue. Copyright 1997 by John ODonohue. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., and Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers Ltd.
Harvard University Press: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.: From Ornament and Silence by Kennedy Fraser. Copyright 1996 by Kennedy Fraser. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and The Wylie Agency, Inc.
Little, Brown and Company: From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Thomas H. Johnson. Copyright 1929 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright renewed 1957, 1963 by Mary L. Hampson. By permission of Little, Brown and Company.
Penguin Putnam, Inc.: From All Souls Day by D. H. Lawrence from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence by D. H. Lawrence, ed. by V. de Sola Pinto and F. W. Roberts. Copyright 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., Laurence Pollinger Ltd., and the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli.
Putnam Publishing Group: From Rilkes Book of Hours, ed. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Copyright 1996 by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Reprinted by permission of Riverhead Books, a division of The Putnam Publishing Group and the authors.
Random House, Inc. From Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen. Copyright 1998 by Anna Quindlen. Reprinted by permission of the publishers Random House, Inc., and Chatto & Windus.
Scribner: From Meditations in Time of Civil War from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume 1: The Poems, rev. and ed. by Richard J. Finneran. 1928 Macmillan Publishing Company; copyright renewed Copyright 1956 by Georgie Yeats. Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster and A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
USA Today: From The new Madonna/Shes mellowed by motherhood, by Edna Gundersen, from March 3, 1998 edition of USA Today. Copyright 1998 USA TODAY. Reprinted by permission.
Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc.: From You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby by Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren. Copyright 1938 (Renewed) Warner Bros. Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
Workman Publishing Co., Inc.: From The Wish List by Barbara Kipfer. Copyright 1997 by Barbara Ann Kipfer. Used by permission of Workman Publishing Co., Inc., New York.
A portion of this work was originally published in Good Housekeeping: pages 4650; 6971; and 231233.
Copyright 1998 by Sarah Ban Breathnach
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.
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ISBN 978-0-446-57122-7
Praise for
Something More
The real power of this work lies in [its] unpretentious sincerity and raw immediacy. Writing not as a guru but as a friend who has learned to cherish her past, Ban Breathnach is a friend indeed.
Publishers Weekly
A potent metaphor for self-discovery [a] practical work of inspiration for women who habitually place others needs before their own.
Library Journal
As welcome as a well-wrapped gift.
New York Post
S IMPLE A BUNDANCE:
A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
T HE S IMPLE A BUNDANCE J OURNAL OF G RATITUDE
S IMPLE A BUNDANCE:
Living By Your Own Lights (audio)
H OLD T HAT T HOUGHT
T HE S IMPLE A BUNDANCE C OMPANION:
Following Your Authentic Path to Something More
M RS . S HARPS T RADITIONS:
Nostalgic Suggestions for Re-creating the Family Celebrations and Seasonal Pastimes of the Victorian Home (published in paperback as Victorian Family Celebrations)
T HE V ICTORIAN N URSERY C OMPANION
Those who live passionately teach us how to love.
Those who love passionately teach us how to live.
For Katie Brant and Larry Kirshbaum
Soul friends.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
FRANZ KAFKA
I have a sense of these buried lives striving to come out through me to express themselves.
MARGE PIERCY
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our lifes star;
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
H uman beings, as far as I can tell, seem to be divided into two subspeciesthe resigned, who live in quiet desperation, and the exhausted, who exist in restless agitation. The quiet and resigned believe that our time on this Earth is random, a roll of cosmic dice, completely beyond our control. You know these folks when you hear them; their sighs speak volumes.