Physicality Quotes (page 42)
The upshot of all this is that we love in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances from us and each other we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don't truly understand.
Bill Bryson
We think of ourselves as failures, rather than renounce our belief in the possibility of perfection. We hang on to the hope of eternal love by denying even its temporary validity. Its less painful to think 'I'm shallow', 'She's self centred', 'We couldn't communicate', 'It was all just physical', than to accept the simple fact that love is a passing sensation, for reasons beyond our control and even beyond our personalities. But who can reassure himself with his own rationalizations? No...
Stephen Vizinczey
A moment later, Jackie lifts himself into a canter. It is analyzable - I have seen the picture of how he steps so far under with his supporting hind leg that he is placing it right beneath where I am sitting; his leg and body become a U-shaped spring that lifts me forward - but it is not describable. It is neither floating nor springing. It is power without labor, thrust without force, the very opposite of any sort of aggression, the particular physics of his anatomy, the demonstration and...
Jane Smiley
Among the values of meditation is that it carries consciousness down to a deeper level, thus letting man live from his centre, not his surface alone. The result is that the physical sense-reactions do not dominate his outlook wholly, as they do an animal's. Mind begins to rule them. This leads more and more to self-control, self-knowledge, and self-pacification.
Paul Brunton
At best he read popular science magazines like the Scientific American he had now, to keep himself up-to-date, in layman's terms, with physics generally. But even then his concentration was marred, for a lifetime's habit made him inconveniently watchful for his own name. He saw it as if in bold. It could leap out at him from an unread double page of small print, and sometimes he could sense it coming before the page turn.
Ian Mcewan
Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it.
Terry Prachett