Quotes About Legacy

What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And [he] thought he had the answer. Regret. Regret for things said, things done, and things not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they'd continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.

Not everything buried is actually dead. For many, the past is alive.

when people died, they didn't go away. They were very much alive in the minds, in the hearts, in the vivid memories of those left behind. And they were not always easy to live with. Some ghosts had demands.

Long dead and buried in another town My mother isn't finished with me yet.

Their lives could not be defined by their deaths. They belonged not in perpetual pain but in the beauty of their short lives.

while men and women perished, and cities fell, symbols endured, grew. Symbols were immortal.

Champlain missing was so much more potent than Champlain found.

A will, an estate, could become about more than money, property, possessions. Who was left the most could be interpreted as who was loved the most. There were different sorts of greed. Of need.

Three craggy pine trees had stood at the far end of the green for as long as anyone remembered, like wise men who'd found what they were looking for.

Have you noticed that more people seem to be dying than are being born? Bean asked, handing the section to Finney, who took it and nodded solemnly. "That means there's more for those of us still here." He handed the section back. "I don't want more," said Bean. "You will.

Photos sat on the piano and shelves bulged with books, testament to a life well lived.

I sometimes think we're a rowboat society." "A what?" asked Jean. "A rowboat. It's why we do things like that." He jerked his head toward the window and the dot on the river. "It's why Québec is so perfectly preserved. It's why we're all so fascinated with history. We're in a rowboat. We move forward, but we're always looking back.

Everyone we meet, every word we speak, every action taken or not taken lives in our longhouse. With us. Always. Never to be expelled or locked away.

Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish. And the tragedy was almost always compounded, Myrna knew. These people invariably passed it on from generation to generation. Magnified each time. The sore point became their family legend, their myth, their legacy. What they lost became their most prized possession. Their inheritance.

The sore point became their family legend, their myth, their legacy. What they lost became their most prized possession. Their inheritance.

What a wonderful epitaph, thought Gamache. He cared for himself.

generation, and he believed it. His one foolish decision. But sons tend to believe fathers.

My father taught me poetry. We'd go for long walks through Outremont and onto Mont Royal, and he'd recite poetry. I'd repeat it. Not well, most of the words meant nothing to me, but I remembered it all, every word. Only later did I realize what it meant." "And what did it mean?" "It meant the world," said Gamache. "My father died when I was nine.

There was no written record of the earliest chants. They were so old, more than a millenium, that they predated written music.

The Paston Treasure.

It's why we're all so fascinated with history. We're in a rowboat. We move forward, but we're always looking back.

The Ouellet Quints.

Long dead and buried in another town, my mother hasn't finished with me yet.