Uncategorized Quotes - Page 313

Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.

There are many good reasons for drinking, and one's just entered my head: If you don't drink when you're living, how the fuck can you drink when you're dead?

Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. It's just that scientists haven't found the answer yet.

I won,” said Chelsea’s dad, and went to give Chelsea a high-five, but missed, as they were standing too close.“My fault,” he said. “That was my fault.”“Oh,” Chelsea said.And he stepped back a little and tried again, but Chelsea, distracted now by something—maybe the plant in the far corner, standing and waiting like a person in a dream; or maybe the green shoe or some other thing that was out there and longing, to be looked at, and taken—wasn’t ready, and their hands, his then hers, passed through the air in a kind of wave, a little goodbye.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Human beings are primarily defined by what we desire, not what we know.

The concept of reconciliation is not irretrievable, but I am convinced that before we theologians can interpret the depths of the divine action of reconciliation we must first articulate the profound deformities of Christian intimacy and identity in modernity. Until we do, all theological discussions of reconciliation will be exactly what they tend to be: (a) ideological tools for facilitating negotiations of power; or (b) socially exhausted idealist claims masquerading as serious theological accounts. In truth, it is not at all clear that most Christians are ready to imagine reconciliation.

We are not trapped by our thoughts. What we generally do, however, is create thoughts that trap us.” (p.162)

I’ll try just putting one foot in front of the other, and walk a step at a time without rushing. So I can burn the path into my memory while I can still see it. So that when all this is over, I can find my way back. Because I intend to come back. Hopefully with all of us together.

There are words, which should leave unspoken, and the true value of a man lies in the words the he has for not saying.

He held out his arms and I ran to embrace him. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel my sorrows anymore, it was as if they were never there. I felt safe, and loved. There were no words exchanged, we just held each other.

There is no dark side to love. Only a darker side to those we love.

......and not out of fear or loneliness, but only to find myself again... for we have come too far my Life, to turn back now...

Fatuous words I don't trust you I trust silenceMore than beauty more than anythingA festival of understanding

When we pray for God to illumine our path, we are saying, ‘Dear God, please show me the way. What thoughts do I need to think, to be able to navigate my life at this point? What perceptions do I need; what insights will guide me? Who do I need to forgive? What parts of my personality do I need to look at; what changes do I need to make? Please come upon me and heal my life. Amen.

You can leave Hong Kong, but it will never leave you.

The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.

Never give up on a dream because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

The presence of Knowledge Based Trust in organizations gives rise to a high level of interpersonal trust amongst their members and creates cohesive units out of a loose bunch of people.

Love is all right, as things go, but lovers can be a terrible waste of a girl's time.

The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Matthiessen says, it “has no patience with mysticism, far less the occult.” Nor does it have any time with moralism, the prescriptions or distortions we would impose on the world, obscuring it from our view. It asks, it insists rather, that we take this moment for what it is, undistracted, and not cloud it with needless worries of what might have been or fantasies of what might come to be. It is, essentially, a training in the real…”the Universe itself is the scripture of Zen." Pico Iyer from introduction.

One of the things I enjoy about being young is learning from my elders without them giving direct advise.

Starting the morning without prayer is like starting a car without gas.

An ancient cornerstone of prayer is that our desire to thank God is itself God's gift. Be grateful.

The next time that something seemingly bad happens to you, look for the divine in it. Look for the soul in the mundane, every day occurrences of your life. Look for the spark, look for the light.

It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more! In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem possible! United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light. The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be king of the family and the world with power unlimited. Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-old's fantasy of omnipotence so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple who have fallen in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. He wants to have sex; she doesn't. She wants to go to the movies; he doesn't. He wants to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job; he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends; he doesn't like hers. So both of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they are not one with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have his or her own desires, tastes, prejudices and timing different from the other's. One by one, gradually or suddenly, the ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the work of real loving.

No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.

I will learn by screwing up.

Every travel is sacred.

Cynicism creates a numbness toward life.Cynicism begins with a wry assurance that everyone has an angle. Behind every silver lining is a cloud. The cynic is always observing, critiquing, but never engaging, loving, and hoping....To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit....Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope.But the similarity is only surface deep.Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me. Naive optimism is groundless. It is childlike trust without the loving Father....Optimism in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life....Shattered optimism sets us up for the fall into defeated weariness and, eventually, cynicism. You'd think it would just leave us less optimistic, but we humans don't do neutral well. We go from seeing the bright side of everything to seeing the dark side of everything. We feel betrayed by life....The movement from naive optimism to cynicism is the new American journey. In naive optimism we don't need to pray because everything is under control. In cynicism we can't pray because everything out of control, little is possible.With the Good Shepherd no longer leading us through the valley of the shadow of death, we need something to maintain our sanity. Cynicism's ironic stance is a weak attempt to maintain a lighthearted equilibrium in a world gone mad....Without the Good Shepherd, we are alone in a meaningless story. Weariness and fear leave us feeling overwhelmed, unable to move. Cynicism leaves us doubting, unable to dream. The combination shuts down our hearts, and we just show up for life, going through the motions.

It is not good for the spirits to dwell on that which cannot be altered.

The darkness is no place to be in times like this.

The sacred lamp burns to give light

The Bible is the philosophy of life.

every session I had no fewer than sixteen girls with “allergies” to dairy and wheat—cheese and bread basically—but also to garlic, eggplant, corn, and nuts. They had cleverly developed “allergies,” I believe, to the foods they had seen their own mothers fearing and loathing as diet fads passed through their homes. I could’ve strangled their mothers for saddling these girls with the idea that food is an enemy—some of them only eight years old and already weird about wanting a piece of bread—and I would’ve liked to bludgeon them, too, for forcing me to participate in their young daughters’ fucked-up relationship with food.

A bird with a broken wing cannot survive nor will a man with a broken spirit endure.

Putting the brakes on is not an easy thing for a vamp to do. It's kind of like a shark trying to stop a feeding frenzy, or that old potato chip slogan: "Bet you can't eat just one.

Hurry up, before there's no more night left.

The kindness that we receive from others in life, is also the kindness that we will want to give. The harshness that we receive from others in life, will also be the harshness that we will give. But true strength lies in seeing the harshness that we have received in life; and living in such a way so that that others will never feel the same from us.

Raging fires grow from the tiniest spark; it is the same principle at work in life. As long as there's a spark, tend to your fire. Never give up. 

There is a universal truth that all successful people know: Nothing is ever done until you take action.

Life’s mystery continued to trouble meA question came to my mind, is freedom dearer than life? or does it become easier to live when life becomes difficult?

Be positive at all times! Leave out the negatives.

The only thing that seems to differ between the major schools of meditation is the point of concentration. Some traditions use mantras, others follow the breath, some have their eyes open, others have their eyes closed, some use simple words, others use prayers and the list can go on. Despite extravagant claims to the contrary, modern research has found no significant difference between the points of concentration at the beginning stages of meditation, which means it doesn’t really matter which mantra, word or phrase you choose to begin with. The main thing is to practice whatever meditation method that you have chosen; sit still and let the mind settle.

Open up and wake up with blazing beauty just remember no one is perfect and you are the most beautiful creature on this planet.

Believe in your prayers. Believe in the power of your faith and blessings of your near and dear ones. Their love serves as a balm, soothes your heart and heals your body.

Your total intelligence knows exactly what to do, because you were made to weather the storms of life.

At no moment in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning.

Yeats was straight, but as Auden wrote in ‘In Memory of WB Yeats’: “You were silly like us.

People only value things in their life when it is taken away from them.

Nathaniel Strider could never love. He's obviously discovered early on that girls' hearts were vulnerable and all a lad needed was a penetrating gaze and a disarming smile and the world was at his feet.

Life without challenge    is life denied any chance      for one to achieve.

Just as we can play beautiful music only when the strings on the violin are in proper tension, so we can grow only when we are stretched from what we are to what we can be. There is no growth without tension.

In this world, there was nothing scarier than trusting someone. But there was also nothing more rewarding.

I'd wasted so much of my life. So many of my days, and all of my promise, all of my dreams, lost to hospitals, to depression, to wanting to die. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This is not who I am.Except, of course, it was. It was all there was left to be.

The dreams that were buried the deepest were the hardest to get rid of.

I am what I am and I can't change it. I know how to cope and how to get by. I don't want or expect anyone to stand with me. I don't need anyone to. I've learned to accept my life just the way it is, and I don't give a damn if you or anyone else doesn't.

I never get used to the faces--wide-eyed and full of possibility--staring bad at me.

As long as I dream, that is enough for me to keep moving forward.

Forget the dream. Stay real.