Quotes from Sena Jeter Naslund

Do you know why sailors wear gold in their ears?" Uncle asked me. "It was the law, long ago, that a sailor had to have on his person enough gold to bury him should he wash ashore. So the seaside folk wouldn't be out of pocket at the funeral expense.

And every morning my heart will rise to meet the sea, which is what we know here on earth of infinity and change.

My faith is firm. My mam called in the children and holding up my baby girl to the sun in the window she said to all them what I say to you, "This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice, be glad in it.

Los buenos actos resuenan a nuestro paso, mucho tiempo después de que hayamos olvidado haberlos realizado.

and this contentment as well? Where we choose to be, where we choose to be—we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.

Al igual que el resto del mundo, nací desnuda.

I opened my letter to Margaret by describing the scene—I always enjoy receiving a letter when the writer locates himself or herself in a definite place, and I like to know if there is a cup of tea at hand, or how the light is falling in the room or beyond the window. Such descriptions transcend the barriers of time and space and give reader and writer the illusion that they are together.

there is a great debate in Kentucky, south of us, near Tennessee, between those who believe in free will and those who hold with predestination. I have always believed I was free.

Let me know that into the knot of self comes the thread called time, and that what I am, disgraced or blessed, came from what I was, goes to what I yet may be.

And it is the way of women. We allow each other our individuality. We do not insist that we dominate or control.

Is it not the case that many a life journey starts out in the opposite direction to its destiny?

If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.

Great minds may have cold hearts. Form but no color. It is an incompleteness. And so they are afraid of any woman who both thinks and feels deeply.

Where we choose to be, where we choose to be--we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.

She seemed imprisoned in her sadness.

That's the way it is in life. You let go of what is beautiful and unique. You pursue something new and don't even know that the wind of your own running is a thief.

Where there is a lack of other connections, of meaningful moments, in our lives, music can often full the gap.

I'm sorry to burden you,' she said. She felt like a crybaby. 'What can we do with our stories,' he said, 'but tell them?

Pardon me, dear human self, capable of the most heinous degradation, capable of soaring.

Is it not the case that many a life journey starts out in the opposite direction to its destiny?

Mortality is a cause for humility, she said to me. None of us knows when he might be taken, as your blessed father was taken. Death, like birth, comes to us all, regardless of rank or station in life.

If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?

Her eyes were as green as the sea, and forever I forgave the sea for not appearing blue.

That night, though I was weary with the day, I took to the roof again.... My fingertips rested lightly on the wooden rail. I could not know if stars were equal to each other, but if they were, then the dim ones must be far and farther away, and toward those reaches I hurled my soul.