Around Quotes (page 110)
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You are not just here to fill space or be a background character in someone else's movie. Consider this: nothing would be the same if you did not exist. Every place you have ever been and everyone you have ever spoken to would be different without you. We are all connected, and we are all affected by the decisions and even the existence of those around us.
David Niven
That's what education should be," I said, "the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way.
Plato
A great fear came over me, and my body went entirely cold, and I stood as if paralyzed with fear; for I knew that the horse was no earthly horse, but the pale horse that will be sent at the Day of Reckoning, and the rider of it is Death; and it was Death himself who stood behind me, with his arms wrapped around me as tight as iron bands, and his lipless mouth kissing my neck as if in love. But as well as the horror, I also felt a strange longing.
Margaret Atwood
I bet you didn’t think I’d come back. But here I am. I come to save you.” Too late, thought Edward as Bryce climbed the pole and worked at the wires that were tied around his wrists. I am nothing but a hollow rabbit. Too late, thought Edward as Bryce pulled the nails out of his ears. I am only a doll made of china. But when the last nail was out and he fell forward into Bryce’s arms, the rabbit felt a rush of relief, and the feeling of relief was followed by one of joy. Perhaps, he thought,...
Kate DiCamillo
Yes, the empire is sick, and, what is worse, it is trying to become accustomed to its sores. This is the aim of my explorations: examining the traces of happiness still to be glimpsed, I gauge its short supply. If you want to know how much darkness there is around you, you must sharpen your eyes, peering at the faint lights in the distance.
Italo Calvino
I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature you didn't know would be helped by it.
Margaret Atwood
He watched a catbird hopping around in an azalea that was readying itself to bloom; he envied the bird for knowing nothing of what he knew; he would have swapped souls with it in a heartbeat. And then to take wing, to know the air's buoyancy even for an hour: the trad was a no-brainer, and the catbird, with its lively indifference to him, its sureness of physical selfhood, seemed well aware of how preferable it was to be the bird.
Jonathan Franzen
The poet he was escorting into Wales was a Horus-headed dud of some personal magnetism. The hair was feathered gell, the nose hooked. He stared at me and he didn’t. His eyes belonged to a magician; one bored into you, right through the lens into the depths of the vitreous humor—while the other popped and wobbled in the style of Ben Turpin. He folded in on himself, profile sharp as an axe. A labrys. This man would have no problem seeing around a corner.
Iain Sinclair
When what we see catches us off guard, and when we write it as realistically and openly as possible, it offers hope. You look around and say, Wow, there's that same mockingbird; there's that woman in the red hat again. The woman in the red hat is about hope because she's in it up to her neck, too, yet every day she puts on that crazy red hat and walks to town.
Anne Lamott