“And once when we were walking on Bredon Hill, we met a bedraggled and exhausted fox. 'Oh, poor thing,' Jack said. 'What shall we do when the hunt comes up? I can already hear them. Oh, I know -- I have an idea.' He cupped his hands and shouted to the first riders, "Hallo, yoicks, gone that way," and pointed in the direction opposite to the one the fox had taken. The whole hunt followed his directions. There followed a long discussion about when lying was morally justifiable, but he boasted delightedly later to my wife that he had saved the life of a poor fox and showed no trace of guilt.”
“He valued these experiences of joy more than anything else he had known, and he desired, as all who have experienced them desire, to have them again and again. It was this mystical quality that set him apart from other boys. He was surprised by joy. He spent the rest of his life searching for more of it.”
“She wants to live simply and thinks luxuries little more than social display.”
“a radiant and infectious, almost childlike gaiety which was always bubbling over into delighted and delightful laughter.”
“During one walk, Jack engaged in the first metaphysical argument that he can remember. It concerned the nature of the future: Is it like a line that you can’t see or a line that is not yet drawn? He would delight in such arguments for the rest of his life.”
“To the end of his life he enjoyed traveling by train, the slower the better, and, if possible, in the front carriage.”
“The best armour of old age is a well spent life perfecting it.”
“and were now coming down a wide intermediate run called”
“Everyone’s nice,” I say, and think of Paul. “Well, maybe not everyone, but I like everybody else. How about that?” I prod her with my elbow. “I like people.” “You know what’s happening? You’re having corrective emotional experiences. That’s where—” I groan. “No, we are not having a Psychoanalyze Sylvie session on the roof. We’re making fun of Paul and possibly shopping, not discussing correctional emotions or whatever.”
“The spirit is beyond pleasure and pain; it’s outside them. They are swings of opposites. The spiritual is in the here and now. It’s not pleasure nor is it pain. It is its own substance, its own kind.”
“No one gets something for nothing, we all should know better”
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