Uncategorized Quotes - Page 185

My intellect is so limited, Lord, that I can only trust in You to preserve me as I should be.

A life I didn't choose chose me.

The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them inpractical fashion.

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.

Anyway, how can you say things like that? You don't know me at all." She wasn't really caught up in this game, but she was enjoying it, as she had enjoyed the dozens of declarations that had been made to her since she was eleven. Her earliest memories were of being told how beautiful she was. Something in her never believed the words, never felt satisfied. It wasn't modesty; it was a craving for more proof than anyone had ever yet given her. Her mind worked constantly at trying to understand for herself exactly what other people saw when they looked at her. She could never grasp it whole and living. Her deepest fantasy was to step outside of her skin and look at herself and find out just what people were thinking about. She spent her life experimenting with people to see how she could make them react, as if, in their response, she could discover herself.

Skills or professionalism is another factor of growth

She decided that if Lucas was gay then she was going to have to get a sex change operation. He would be so worth it.

We are the directors of our own life, creating our own version of truth, which can be humorous, pleasurable, miserable, brutal, or stupid. Reconciling loss and misfortune can provide a sense of sublimity or catharsis.

The light in that room was a glow; I seem to remember the color green, or perhaps flowers. A pale green sheet covered his inert body but not his head, which lay (eyes closed, mouth set in a tense and terrible grimace) unmoving. Gianluca. Barely able to see, barely able to stand - my knees kept buckling – and breathing so quietly I thought that I, too, might die; that out of shock, I would just drift away, the shell of my body cracking open. No longer anchored by my brother’s love, I would be reabsorbed by sky. Gianluca. If there was never another sound in the world, I would understand – yes, that would be appropriate, it would be fitting. This was the antithesis of music, the antithesis of noise. My brother’s death seemed to demand silence of all the world. Gianluca.

It is better to go forward without a goal, than to have a goal and stay in one place, and it is certainly better than to stay in one place without a goal.

Read something worth writing about or write something worth reading about

I don't pray because it makes sense to pray. I pray because my life doesn't make sense without prayer.

If Myrnin pokes his crazy head up before then, call me and try to keep him, you know, stable.''Is he UNstable?''I don't know, how can I tell? You're the crazy whisperer!'She had a point. Claire couldn't help but smile about that.

The person who waits upon moods in impoverished. If the painter only wanted to paint when in the mood for it, he would not get very far. In religion, as in art and science, along with the times of high excitement, there are times of sober work and practice. We must practice our communion with God, otherwise we will not find the right tone, the right word, the right language, when God surprises us with his presence.

You'll end up living a lonely life if you're waiting around for perfect.

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

Her hair was pulled back so severely, it would have won approval from the Spanish Inquisition as a method of torture.

Why at the beginning of things is there always light? Dorrigo Evans' earliest memories were of sun flooding a church hall in which he sat with his mother and grandmother. A wooden church hall. Blinding light and him toddling back and forth, in and out of its transcendent welcome, into the arms of women. Women who loved him. Like entering the sea and returning to the beach. Over and over.

The transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer.

That which wounds, shall heal.

It was an intensely lonely moment, like all of eighth grade condensed into one claustrophobic second.

It’s easy to think that if we had a different house, different car, different job, different relationship, different city, everything would be different; that we would feel different then.The problem is, you are the main character in the story that is your life. No matter how much you alter the setting of that story, you can’t escape from yourself. There are many factors which contribute to your experience on this planet, but ultimately, you are the one creating your experience here. In order to get to the life you are here to live, you must begin by becoming the person you are here to become.

She was born of space. And starlight. But she bled wrath. And vengeance.."[From Current Work In Progress]

I didn’t have the vaguest idea of what to do – I couldn’t keep staring at the wall forever, I told myself. But even that admonition didn’t work. A faculty advisor reviewing a graduation thesis would have had the perfect comment: you write well, you argue clearly, but you don’t have anything to say.

Try listening to yourself sometime, alone in a transient room in a strange town. The worst is when you draw a blank, and the ash-blonde ghosts of the past carry on long twittering long-distance calls with your inner ear, and there's no way to hang up.

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poets; but if they really had such a comprehension, it must be confessed they did not show it; most of them, I thought, did not really live - contented themselves with appearing to live, and were on the verge of considering life merely as a vexatious hindrance to writing.

As your father keeps clean his lamp to have good light, so keep clean your spirit.

Foolish acts and bold adventures almost always appear, especially in the beginning, to be the absolute same thing.

William looked up... through his tears... past the catwalk and lights... past the sky... through the dark and clouds and stars and into the void where he once knew God existed, then turned himself outside-in, alone, and asked, 'Why?

Do not bank on mere mortals. Trust the One who will never fail you

I will sacrifice today for tomorrow.

In my dream I drank fully of water, but when I woke, I was thirsty." Ned Low

But a whole bottle was what made me feel dead inside. And it worked, all the days stress was gone and I was able to live without the gigantic knot in my stomach. Without the boulders weighing down my shoulders.

I guess, my advice would be the following: stay calm and do not let the panic seize you.

Prayer is the breath of our spirit-man

God, I’ve just figured out what’s missing – you ditched the hallowed Albermarle Teddy Bear!’ I nodded.   ‘Banished to a dark cupboard for all eternity.’ ‘You cold-hearted bastard.’ ‘Give me a hot water bottle any day.   At least they have some appreciable function.   Not like that pathetic pile of overpriced fake fur and anthropomorphic bullshit I locked in the wardrobe.’‘You have serious teddy bear issues.

We all seek that somewhere to which we belong and that somewhere is surely not here!

...you are different from me, because you want to realize your dreams, I just want to dream...I'm afraid it will all be a disappointment, so I prefer just to dream...

I am forever an advocate of books, both the reading of them and the writing. There is something sacred to me in that community. Because writing--and reading--is a solitary business. And it’s good to know I’m not alone.

We are not the only ones affected by our recovery. The spiritual awakening heals the world one person at a time.

Disquietude that springs from the fundamental nature of being a human being is vaster and more encompassing than depression, which has a cause and therefore a cure.

Steampunk is nothing more than what happens when Goths discover brown.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.

I pointed, still unable to utter a word. Tim looked down at the spectacle behind the shed, his face swiftly draining of color. He gripped my arm with a clammy hand. And then he did something I'd been waiting half my life to see: he dropped into a dead swoon at my feet.

But you’re right about one thing: he’s my best friend. I know him very well, and no matter what he said or did tonight, I’ve never seen him act this way with another girl. No one,” he repeated, “except you.

He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.

Words are the fallen ruins of silent majesty.

One learns by doing, not by learning to do.

The self, when confined into the usual wakeful state of consciousness, is human, but when enters into the transcendental state of Absolute Oneness, becomes God.

World is full of people waiting to pursue their passion, if given a chance. Unfortunately, the "chance" will not be given, it needs to be earned.

Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?

The real home of man is not his house but the road. Life itself is a travel that has to be done by foot.

When life gives you the gift of a great story, to not partake in the telling of that story would be a crime against humanity.

The universe is amply supplied with night.

We know Existence, because we are existence. We know Truth, because we are truth.We know Life, because we are life itself.The mind cannot remember this, because it is an experience far removed from it. The mind is an observer, not a knower. It can remember, but it cannot become what it remembers.The mind is a false witness to truth, life, and existence.

Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream.Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log crackles with orange and crimson sparks.There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers.There’s a friend seated across from you in the cozy chair, warming your heart.There is mystery unfolding.

Positive words left unsaid are like sachets of currency notes burnt in vain. Positive deeds left undone are like deep wells filled with soil to the brim. Do the undone, say the unsaid and turn the unturned.

Shine brightly, so you can help those who have not found their path a way through the darkness.