Talks Quotes (page 78)
When the talk about my troubles was loudest, I did the thing I've always spoken of most . I got still and listened for the answer to What is this here to teach me? The answer, first and foremost? Lay your ego down. Step out of your ego so you can recognize the truth. As soon as I did that, I was able to see the role I had played in creating "my circumstances," without blaming other people. And -- bingo! -- I realized that all the noise about my struggle was a reflection of my personal angst...
Oprah Winfrey
Lovely and unremarkable, the clutterof mugs and books, the almost-empty FigNewtons box, thick dishes in a bigtin tray, the knife still standing in the butter, change like the color of river waterin the delicate shift to day. Thin fogveils the hedges, where a neighbor dogmakes rounds. 'Go to bed. It doesn't matterabout the washing-up. Take this book along.'Whatever it was we said that night is gone, framed like a photograph nobody took. Stretched out on a camp cot with the book, I think that...
Marilyn Hacker
Then a complete silence fell over everybody; where once Dean would have talked his way out, he now fell silent himself, but standing in front of everybody, ragged and broken and idiotic, right under the lightbulbs, his bony mad face covered with sweat and throbbing veins, saying, "Yes, yes, yes," as though tremendous revelations were pouring into him all the time now, and I am convinced they were, and the others suspected as much and were frightened. He was BEAT-the root, the soul of Beatific.
Jack Kerouac
... 'Course, talkin' don't amount tuh uh hill uh beans when yuh can't do nothin' else. And listenin' tuh dat kind uh talk is jus' lak openin' yo' mouth and lettin' de moon shine down yo' throat. It's uh known fact, Pheopby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.
Zora Neale Hurston