Best Quotes from What If... by Shirley Maclaine with Page Numbers

What if all that we are is simply the result of what we have thought?

What if our daily life itself is an illusion?

I believe that our minds influence our physical surroundings because reality is nothing but extended thought anyway.

Thought creates form.

What if, as quantum physics says, we change what we see simply by observing it?

My father encouraged young people to think, not just to pass tests.

I think that’s why I fell in love with acting as a creative profession.

Life itself was a kind of chosen performance.

What if we actually use our close-knit family members to overcome what we’ve not been able to overcome ourselves?

Maybe lack of sleep is what is wrong with the world!

Dreams can tell us about our present, our past, our future.

What if our subconscious controls our destiny?

What if most of our society desires to avoid facing the truth of its existence?

What if we were as aware of our spiritual nutrition as our physical nutrition?

The body has its own intelligence, and if it thinks it’s starving, it will hang on to those calories as long as it can.

What if negative emotions are what make us sick?

I would rather face the disease and go right to the root of the problem than treat only the symptoms.

Perhaps his compulsively outrageous passion for the expression of ideas could be described as neurotic.

What if obesity is an epidemic of comfort food stuffing driven by a desire to avoid recognizing who we have become?

Such is the show business of life . . . fat or thin, light or heavy.

Covering what’s authentic with a false façade usually means that presentation is being given more value than substance.

I never saw a revolutionary, someone agitating for genuine social change, preen with vanity in front of a mirror.

The irony is that wisdom is (or should be) synonymous with age, not with youth and innocent beauty.

So which is more desirable: time and experience leaving no discernible mark on a taut and unmoving face, or time settling in the creases, imbuing that face with outward signs of a life well lived?

What if aging is all about learning to love the fact that nature takes its course?

Stay in the light—in every way.

What if our leaders—in politics, science, philosophy, medicine, and business—actually led?

Money has become the foundation of our political system, our supposedly democratic society, and the reason we get up every morning.

When I use that term, I don’t mean the God of one particular sect or religion; I mean 'the creator of all that is.'

What if God created us and then left it up to us to figure out why?

What if good farmland once again became the most valuable commodity in our world?

Soon the bartender had accrued quite an extensive parcel of land.

Those landowners are farmers, and today they may be cash poor, but they are land rich.

What if, in the future, the land with water and nothing else is the beginning of a new, wealthy, food-sharing culture?

Wake up, women of the world! You have earned the right to be free of taking care of others.

Perhaps you are the true warriors for peace.

I live simply and love to be alone to conjure, think, reflect, and have as few responsibilities as possible.

I loved to work hard, and feel I have earned all I have, which is enough for the rest of my life.

Many women friends my age are finding exquisite peace and happiness on their own.

On the contrary, we feel free and creative to be who we are.

What if the greatest act of love is to withdraw, allowing another soul to exist?

We each have a destiny, a future that is meant for us, but we each also have the power to change that destiny—for better or for worse!—by our actions and by the choices we make every day.

If you ask me how I would define myself, I would say I’m a dancer who loves to think.

This inner gymnastic was in high gear on the red carpet that night, and I was grateful for the sixty-some years of phantasmagorical experience I’ve had in mastering the art of self-concealment in public.

I suddenly realized how impossible it was to experience this event in a simple, straightforward way.

It’s all about the show—no, it’s really about the business.

I looked out into the audience. The first person I saw was my brother, Warren.

I knew Warren and I were a remarkable success story in Hollywood.

I wondered if Mother and Dad were looking down on this moment in pride.

I’ve always been moved to write about our parents.

Had I seen these qualities in them and attempted to fulfill their unrequited dreams by making them happen for myself?

Perhaps such a concern is the prime prerequisite for a show business career: What will the people think?

Our seventy-five-plus years together culminated in this moment, as though it had been ordained by an unknown force.

My world was diverse and varied.

I wanted to live in a place where your perceived value as a person didn’t rise and fall depending on weekend box office receipts.

I had never realized how much.

It’s about your work throughout your whole life, not just one performance.

My task that night was to appreciate what was happening.

It was the public expression of what I believed that seemed to impress and inspire people.

I felt privileged to know her and everyone else who had made that night so memorable.

What if our friends are our best teachers because there is only sharing without expectation of anything in return?

The emotional complexity of our shared moments is the true reason why we’re there.

Observing and participating in a scene with really good actors is one of the greatest pleasures in my life.

The experience of a live audience is the ultimate in karmic interplay. What you put out, you get back.

The theatrical electricity of human appreciation is like no other, particularly the moments of silence.

A child can walk on a stage and the audience obeys—or a dog, or any living being who simply stands there doing nothing.

When all is said and done, the need to please an audience must come from needing to be loved.

The true essence of spirituality is when everything and everyone becomes one.

The fact that it’s also a business is just something we have to tolerate. And all of it is Show Business.

What if the theater left audiences in touch with their own God spark?

What if sex is only a chemistry experiment?

What if sex isn’t meant to be monogamous?

I’ve lost count of how many people already agree with this.

When considering sexuality, there is much more to factor in than simply male and female.

My sexual adventures and preferences are more subdued now—and were never truly outrageous.

What if the only thing that counts is creativity—in matters sexual and otherwise?

What if Spiritual Hunger is what we are suffering from and no one is feeding us?

I began to understand the comfort of tradition the characters in Downton Abbey cherished.

Acting in good scripts always makes me understand life more.

I had a feeling Downton Abbey would be part of my life for a long time to come.

Animals know that the laws of survival are in effect, and some kind of animal karma is enacted.

I believe the life she has led has been too pleasurable for her to ignore.

I have learned I can love more than one soul equally.

A dog will always tell you the truth, no matter what.

What if we simply need to ask the right questions instead of trying to find all the right answers?

Our souls.

Perhaps polar opposites are not made to last long into the future.

Synchronicity were available to us every moment?

I try to think of answers as springboards to more questions.

They’ll be lifelong pals until Terry decides to move on, and I hope she will come back right away.

The universe had provided me with the answer to my question.

Friendships always return, and timing is everything!

When you tell a good story enough times, it becomes far more real than any so-called truth.

I’d rather be happy.

I began to become aware that there were indeed other, different realities being served up by life.

The unreal studio system forced me into the real world.

There is so much that I wasn’t aware of.

Maybe there’s a lesson there about female friendships, or about taking risks.

Life was a fabulous entertainment.

It's all about profit and loss, not visionary cinematic communication anymore.

"Don’t conceal—Reveal."

"We can get any fact in a nanosecond, but getting wisdom still takes a lifetime (or more!)."

"Perhaps we have simply followed the footsteps of Lucifer in defiance of Divine Law and we are reaping the rewards of living in a state of limited reality: Insanity (aka a film set)."

"Democracy is having a hard time because we don’t understand the consequences of our individual freedoms and choices."

"What if our Congress were enlightened enough to understand that separation of church and state (religion and government) is the forerunner to a Spiritually Enlightened democracy?"

"While the stars remain and the heavens send down dew upon the earth, so shall the Union last. Let every child of the Republic learn to live for his God, his land and the Union."

"Superior beings smile at our theories and at our presumptions in making them."

"I believe that man is not the most perfect Being but One, rather that as there are many Degrees of Beings his inferiors, so there are many Degrees of Beings superior to him."

"Our task is to learn the language with which to read it."

"The third act has not been written yet . . . it is too complicated to imagine the story as of now!"

The heavens were inhabited and wanted Washington, DC, not just to be the capital of the United States of America, but the capital of the universe.

Domes are places where heaven and earth meet. They are considered to be portals, or gateways, to the stars.

What if elections focused less on manipulating the negative and more on the emergence of positive new ideas?

Would Obama be a good planetary president? He can play all the parts—and he has.

Perhaps that is the most useful advice for all-around good health that there is. The news is show business disguised as information.

He was funny, profound, and seemed way ahead of the twenty-five thousand people in front of him.

The right message for the right city!

Fuck it. If those two words are good enough for the Dalai Lama, they are good enough for me.

Is it meant to be a spiritual document as well as a political one?

Nobody should be asked to give their life for this show.

What if everything were light, would there be any individuation?

Can we learn about ourselves without conflict?

Life doesn’t survive without creativity.

Is the most important lesson knowing thyself?

What we see in others is only what we know exists in ourselves.

Perhaps we need to learn about ourselves through conflict to evolve to a higher level of consciousness.

People everywhere are outgrowing traditional religion. They want to find their own truth and touch their own personal higher power.

What if fear breeds handing over control, and handing over control breeds cooperative dumbing-down?

Make people afraid enough, they will submit to anything.

Anger is the motivator of change.

Is that how the American Revolution was born? People who became pissed off at being pissed on . . . and by our very own “protectors.”

Cynicism exists as a warning to the status quo that it is failing.

We long to hear the truth. We can tolerate the truth because cynical humor takes the edge off its devastating import.

What if Hope is a most dangerous emotion?

Hope allows us to relinquish our personal responsibility because it causes us to divert our attention from what we, on some level, are responsible for.

To me, hope is decidedly different from Prayer. Prayer denotes action and focus.

Hope is often used by defeatist individuals who don’t take responsibility.

As Benjamin Franklin said, 'He that lives upon hope will die fasting.'

What if our current chaos really is the beginning of Nature cleaning itself?

I believe we will finally understand our true origins and purpose as beings of light on the earth.

I believe it is time to understand that the history of this earth has been a struggle against being the fearful victims of our past experiences.

After all, our interiors are as infinite as the exterior universe that is expanding.

I’d be part of Nature, not separated from her.

I think I would become less self-centered, while understanding the centeredness of Self more.

What if our DNA is being activated into a new awareness?

Perhaps Nature, by making us increasingly forgetful, is saying, 'You must begin to vibrate to the new frequency even if it means losing awareness of people and events you experienced before.'

Everything will change and become obsolete.

The natural world will successfully make it through this transition.

I feel more emotional about life and less logical.

How can anyone in this world who walks upright and is even half aware of what’s really going on not search for the deeper meaning of it all?

What if each of us could remember our untapped origins in the cosmos?

How could we possibly be alone in the cosmos with trillions of stars capable of supporting life?

What if those visitors made us from breeding their own genetic material with a hominid species they found on Earth?

Perhaps this is why gold has always been the standard by which we measure wealth.

Perhaps the Bible is correct. Gods created man.

What if evolution itself is speeding up?

What if these "Eloheim," these visitors from the stars, were regarded as gods and creators?

What if the snake was not the deceiver, but was instead the conduit to spiritual and healing knowledge?

What if curiosity were the original sin?

Did the Eloheim 'creators' intend for mankind to live our entire lives regarding only a material physical existence?

What if all this is hiding in plain sight in the Bible and only subject to interpretation?

If what I ruminate upon is even partially true, doesn’t that mean we humans are only an infinitesimal part of a gigantic cosmic puzzle?

Are other cosmic beings watching us?

The star people say, 'We must teach children to be expressive with their feelings...'

Every action has a reaction, whether it occurs in the present lifetime or later.

Perhaps we will be 'resurrected' from fear. Without fear we could have long-lasting peace in our souls.

The end marks the start of a shift in our human consciousness.

Without ancient karmic memories, perhaps we will be 'home again' as children of the Light.

What if the body is merely a vehicle for souls to act out their parts, lifetime after lifetime, until they finally get it right?

Imagine paying the military for entertaining information as to who we really are.

What if we really choose our mothers and fathers and family members from a cast of soul characters we know will afford us the opportunity to learn what we most need to learn?

What if suffering is the way we choose to learn compassion?

If we don’t experience something ourselves, how can we understand what someone else is going through?

What if raising one’s consciousness is really about upgrading the Divine in ourselves?

Fear is only a part of our soul memory, a part that breeds anger and hostility and rage at us and anyone around us.

Since the soul never dies, what is there to fear regarding death?

The purpose of life is to learn love and to grasp the connection of the Creator to all creation.

In being open channels to the healing energy of these repentant souls, they said they’d come to see that the definition of Evil is imposing one’s will on another.

What if we could see real-life 'dailies' like we do in 'reel' life?

He said that the most advanced science of consciousness was what we call God, the creator.

My new motto: Shift Happens.

If that is so, then why get emotional or judgmental about anything?

Every minute of your birthday, you are self-conscious about who you are and who you’re not.

I value my work ethic because I feel it keeps me sane.

Utilizing your power to make your own life better—and the world a better place.

We all possess the power to make the pictures in our minds become the 'reality' in which we live.

What if we could celebrate all the birthdays we ever had?

If we remembered, perhaps we would deal with such destructive feelings more sanely and constructively.

Understanding that death doesn’t happen, because nothing ever dies, it just changes form.

Such a review would give our lives purpose and intentionality.

I do believe that wisdom is the reward of aging.

The "what if" part of my personality is essential to my life force.

Letting go is the key to happiness for me as I grow older.

I sleep with it beside my bed every night.

How could it be any better?

What if enlightenment is inevitable?

What if the Director never says, 'Cut'?

What if this isn’t . . . The End?

I’ll help publicize, but I have to enjoy that, too, or I don’t show up or stay.

Speculation is more fun than knowledge.