“If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.”
“I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.”
“We can't stand it, to be alone. We cannot bear it, any more than the monks of old could bear it, men who though they had renounced all else for Christ's sake, nevertheless came together in congregations to be with one another, even as they enforced upon themselves the harsh rules of single solitary cells and unbroken silence. They couldn't bear to be alone.
We are too much men and women; we are yet formed in the image of the Creater, and what can we say of Him with any certainty except that He, whoever He may be--Christ, Yahweh, Allah--He made us, did He not, because even He in His Infinite Perfection could not bear to be alone.”
“The human heart is my school.”
“How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes?”
“Perhaps I fear him because I could love him again, and in loving him, I would come to need him, and in needing him, I would again be his faithful pupil in all things, only to discover that his patience for me is no substitute for the passion which long ago blazed in his eyes.”
“And what if I never go of my own free will? Will you pitch me from some window
so that I must fly or fall? Will you bolt all shutters after me? You had better, because
I'll knock and knock and knock until I fall down dead. I'll have no wings that take me
away from you.”
“If I'm an angel, paint me with black wings.”
“Master, the paintings, the paintings in the storage rooms!" I cried.
"Forget the paintings. It's too late. Boys, run from here, get out now, save yourselves from the fire."
Knocking the attackers back, he shot up the stairwell and called down to me from the uppermost railing. "Come, Amadeo, fight them off, believe in your strength, child, fight.”
“Please, Master, I can’t endure this,” I said. “Then, how will you endure eternity, my child? Don’t you know that’s what I mean to give you? What power under God is there that can break me?”
“Good was above all kind; it was to be gentle. It was to waste nothing. It was to paint, to read, to study, to listen.”
“Life is a tragedy, one way or another. What is certain is that you die.”
“But remember the overall lesson, that your love for others, and their love for you, that the increase of love in life itself around you, is what matters.”
“Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.”
“The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance...”
“If we’re starting over,” he says, quietly, “is it too early to say I love you?”
“The younger man’s build qualified him as an ectomorph—very”
“Гудамж талбайгаар есөн жорийн эрээн мяраан сонин хачин зарлал гэж байгаагүй бол, үй түмэн хүн гудамж талбайгаар үргэлж гүйлдэж байдаггүй бол өвлийн хахир хүйтэн улирал бидний сэтгэл зүрхэнд хичнээн сүрхий дарамт болохыг, гэрэл гэгээ дулаан илчээ бидэнд зохих хэмжээгээр хүртээж чадахаа больдог өвлийн өдөр бидний сэтгэл санааг хичнээн их зовоохыг төвөггүй ойлгохсон. Тийм зүйлсийн эрхэнд бид аль зэрэг байдгаа тэр болгон ойлгодоггүй. Бид бол үнэндээ дулааны хүчээр бий болж, түүгээр дутахдаа сөнөдөг хорхой шавьж л гэсэн үг.”
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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