Ifs And Quotes (page 415)
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But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin...
Robert Kennedy
Hermione, if Harry’s seen a Grim, that’s — that’s bad,” he said.
“My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!”
“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Ron, starting to get angry. “Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”
“There you are, then,” said Hermione in a superior tone. “They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim’s not an omen, it’s the cause of death! And...
J. K. Rowling
Yes, I lay in my grave. But if you lie in a grave long enough, you get accustomed to it and you don't want to part from it. He had given me a pill of cyanide, He and his wife and their son also carried such pills. We all lived with death, and I want you to know that one can fall in love with death. Whoever has loved death cannot love anything else any more. When the liberation came and they told me to leave, I didn't want to go. I clung to the threshold like an ox being dragged to the...
Isaac Bashevis Singer
I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had...
Maeve Binchy
It’s like a man in the trenches
again: he doesn’t know any more why he should go on living, because
if he escapes now he’ll only be caught later, but he goes on just
the same, and even though he has the soul of a cockroach and has
admitted as much to himself, give him a gun or a knife or even just
his bare nails, and he’ll go on slaughtering and slaughtering, he’d
slaughter a million men rather than stop and ask himself why.
Henry Miller
Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you...
Steve Jobs
What a risk, Reuben thought. I could easily hit him over the head and rob the church of its gold candlesticks. He wondered how often Jim had done this kind of thing, or why Jim's life was such a round of sacrifice and exhausting work, how it was Jim could ladle up soup and corned beef hash every day for people who so often let him down, or go through the same ritual every morning at the altar, as if it really was a miracle when he consecrated the bread and wine and gave out "the Body of...
Anne Rice
I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a...
Rainer Maria Rilke
I make out a schoolbus...glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Liger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymous Bosch fifty buckets of day-glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester schoolbus and told him to go to it.
Tom Wolfe
What I felt for you was a combination of respect and affection. There was a closeness I felt through intimate interaction. The affection part is all over with. All that remains is the respect. If I put my arms around you and told you that I missed you, I would be lying. You're alright with me and I wish you well. But you're not me and that makes you one of them and you can only get so close.
Henry Rollins
The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its...
Diane Ackerman
The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of their claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transciencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.
Cormac McCarthy
The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.
But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?
Invest in the human family....
Mitch Albom
They sat on a bench and Sproule held his wounded arm to his chest and rocked back and forth and blinked in the sun.
What do you want to do? said the kid.
Get a drink of water.
Other than that.
I dont know.
You want to try and head back?
To Texas?
I don't know where else.
We'd never make it.
Well you say.
I aint got no say.
He was coughing again. He held his chest with his good hand and sat as if he'd get his breath.
What have you got, a cold?
I got consumption.
Consumption?
He nodded. I...
Cormac McCarthy
I delight to come to my bearings,—not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may,—not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. I love to weigh, to settle, to...
Henry David Thoreau