“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).”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back. ”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“Art is the antidote that can call us back from the edge of numbness, restoring the ability to feel for another.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“High fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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. ”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“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.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“You can fool history sometimes, but you can’t fool the memory of your intimates.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“we went on record as half-bad musicians having wholehearted lives.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson
“with simultaneous wars in Baja, Tamaulipas, and now Michoacán. Keller has to admit that the violence is unprecedented. Even at the height (the depth?) of Barrera’s war against Güero Méndez, back in the ’90s, the fighting was sporadic—brief sudden peaks of violence—not a daily event. And not spread across three broad areas of the country, with multiple and interconnected antagonists. The Alliance fighting Teo Solorzano in Baja. The Alliance fighting the CDG/Zetas in Tamaulipas.”
― Don Winslow, quote from The Cartel
“Atisha says: Awareness inside, compassion on the outside. Compassion is the outer side of awareness, the exterior of awareness. Awareness is your interiority, subjectivity. Compassion is relating with others, sharing with others.”
― Osho, quote from The Book of Wisdom
“ALBUS/RON: How to distract Scorpius from difficult emotional issues. Take him to a library.”
― John Tiffany, quote from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts I & II
“أعلى درجات التحصيل للإنسان هى أن يصل إلى نقطة تنعدم عندها كل رغباته. ذلك هو "السلام الداخلى" لبوذا، سعادة داخلية لإنسان لم تعد لديه أى رغبة، إنسان كريم مع الجميع ولا يطلب شيئاً من أحد مطلقاً. كما كانت من تعاليم البوذا كذلك أن الإنسان الذى يصبح سيد رغباته لن يعود للحياة مرة أخرى بعد موته. فقط الأرواح المتعلقة برغبات الحياة هى التى تعاد ولادتها، هكذا آمن أتباع البوذا. فالإنسان الذى لا يعود متعلقاً بالحياة يتحرر من الدائرة الأبدية للولادة والموت، كما يتحرر كذلك على الأقل من المعاناة. يدعو البوذيين هذه المرحلة "النيرفانا".”
― E.H. Gombrich, quote from A Little History of the World
“It was one thing to lose the people you love. That happens to everybody. But it was another thing to lose them because you just... faded away.
I didn't want to fade away.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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