“In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).”
“Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”
“Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back. ”
“If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.”
“Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another.”
“Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky.
But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittle brush in a dry wind.”
“High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.”
“It feels strange to me to be living in a box, hiding from the steadying influence of the moon; wearing the hide of a cow, which is supposed to be dyed to match God-knows-what, on my feet; making promises over the telephone about things I will do at a precise hour next year.”
“If humanity survives long enough to understand what he really was, they can dig him up and put on display the grandiose depravity of the twentieth century. ”
“I hold on to my adopted shore, chanting private vows: wherever I am, let me never forget to distinguish want from need. Let me be a good animal today. Let me dance in the waves of my private tide, the habits of survival and love.”
“When something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.”
“Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job... And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another... Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”
“Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky. But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittlebush in a dry wind.”
“I knew exactly what I should have said: Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.”
“You can fool history sometimes, but you can’t fool the memory of your intimates.”
“we went on record as half-bad musicians having wholehearted lives.”
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16KJV).”
“You hold in your hands my heart, my soul, and my very being. You are already the Queen of my heart, my love, my true love, my only love.”- Kian, Frost Kisses”
“I was peeling apart in layers. I was breaking into bits. She was coming apart at the seams … my head buzzing with a confusion of junk noise, white noise, space junk, a junkyard of noisy thought that made me long instead for a lovely, petaled silence.”
“He may say he is different. He may want to be different. He may even go so far as to become your lover. But he'll always feel guilty and dirty. He'll be ashamed to be seen with you and try to blame you for his own desires. He'll claim you seduced him or that you are somehow irresistible because you're Haldiim. If the two of you are discovered together, he'll press charges to save himself. That's how Cadeleonian men are.”
“Just as we leave the effects of our work behind in results, we leave the effects of our interactions with people in their hearts, minds, and souls.”
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