“...she had begun to learn that success was sometimes simply a matter of having the courage to proceed in the direction of one's dreams.”
“When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child but when I grew up I put away childish things; for now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face!”
“Strange that one man's actions could touch so many other people, like a single, thoughtless breath of wind coming in an open window and blowing the playing cards every which way.”
“Nature gives you the face you possess at twenty . . . Life the face you possess at thirty. But the face you have at fifty is the face you deserve.”
“There is no weakness in crying. If we do not sorrow over what hurts us, how do we ever go past it? I have shed many a tear myself, Barbara Devane, over what life has brought me. Compassion can come from great pain, if you allow it. But compassion takes courage. Bitterness is easier.”
“Change is an easy thing to decide and a difficult thing to do. It is the day-to-day struggle of it that defeats people. Do not despair if old ways look good to you. Despair only if you fall into them too often.”
“In this life, many things happen in which we play a shameful part. Those of us who are strong forgive ourselves and go on. The weak wallow in their shame and allow it to devour them. There is no one of us without sin, child. There ought to be some comfort in that.”
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
“Nature gives you the face you possess at twenty, she always quoted to her daughter Fanny. Life the face you possess at thirty. But the face you have at fifty is the face you deserve.”
“What do you know of love? It comes from being with someone, from facing life together! Life in its awfulness as well as its joy! You love a handsome face. Nothing more!”
“She did not know yet know it, but her voice made her immediately sensual. Roger looked stunned, and Diana saw it. As inexperienced as she was, so did Barbara. The sudden admiration in his eyes was different from that of a few moments ago, when it had been man to child. His look was now man to woman, acknowledging a part of herself she did not yet know she possessed. And she smiled tenderly at him, her love on her face, because he was the first man to look at her so, and because he had been kind to her when she came in, and because she loved him, as she always had. And this time it was he who caught his breath, for when Barbara smiled, eyes were dazzled.”
“The night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee…”
“The first is about forgiveness. It is never done well in little bits and dabs. Do it all at once and never look back, or do not do it at all.”
“And the second is about change. Change is an easy thing to decide and a difficult thing to do. It is the day–to–day struggle of it that defeats people. Do not despair if old ways look good to you. Despair only if you fall into them too often.”
“From the beginning, I’ve told journalists that I planned to write better than any writer of my era who graduated from an Ivy League college. It sounds boastful and it is. But The Citadel taught me that I was a man of courage when I survived that merciless crucible of a four-year test that is the measure of The Citadel experience. I’m the kind of writer I am because of The Citadel.”
“For girls, chocolate fixes almost everything.”
“if you do not want me to break your wrist with one squeeze of my hand, you will do two things immediately, First you will remove your hand from my woman's purse. Second, you will remove your hand from my shirt. It's attached to the body that belongs to the owner of the purse.”
“College costs money- a lot. Yet education in itself is not of much value. For example, we can look to the general public's almost complete disregard for anything that educated people have to say about global warming, shrinking oil reserves, pollution, or the threat of nuclear annihilation. But if all this is true, why does something as worthless as a college diploma cost so much money?”
“Why should caring for others begin with the self? There is an abundance of rather vague ideas about this issue, which I am sure neuroscience will one day resolve. Let me offer my own “hand waving” explanation by saying that advanced empathy requires both mental mirroring and mental separation. The mirroring allows the sight of another person in a particular emotional state to induce a similar state in us. We literally feel their pain, loss, delight, disgust, etc., through so-called shared representations. Neuroimaging shows that our brains are similarly activated as those of people we identify with. This is an ancient mechanism: It is automatic, starts early in life, and probably characterizes all mammals. But we go beyond this, and this is where mental separation comes in. We parse our own state from the other’s. Otherwise, we would be like the toddler who cries when she hears another cry but fails to distinguish her own distress from the other’s. How could she care for the other if she can’t even tell where her feelings are coming from? In the words of psychologist Daniel Goleman, “Self-absorption kills empathy.” The child needs to disentangle herself from the other so as to pinpoint the actual source of her feelings.”
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