If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished? – Rumi

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting! They derive from a slow and powerful root that we can’t see. Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out. – Rumi, as interpreted by Coleman Barks

There is a way of breathing that’s a shame and a suffocation and there’s another way of expiring, a love breath, that lets you open infinitely. – Rumi

Why should I stay at the bottom of a well when a strong rope is in my hand? – Rumi, as interpreted by Jonathan Star