Quotes About Life

Children were the foot wedged in the closing door, the glimmer of hope that in reincarnation there would be some house to go to, even if one came back as a dog, or a mouse, or a flea that lived on the bodies of men.

Of course, you and I have seen countless deaths among the poor. Their only regret surely is being born poor, suffering from birth to death. You know, in the Book of Job, Job says to God, 'You should've taken me straight from the womb to the tomb! Why the in-between part, why life, if it was just to suffer?' Something like that. For the poor, death is at least the end of suffering." He laughed as if he liked what

she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.

the sweetness of life is sure in only two things: love and sugar. If you don't get enough of the first, have more of the second!

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward." from CUTTING FOR STONE

We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death, lest for forget, is the common lot.

inhales. Digby feels the first stirrings of hunger. By such subtle signs, like an orchestra tuning up, the daily event that is central to life on the Coromandel Coast announces itself: the evening breeze. The

This is the covenant of water: that they're all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone. She stays there listening to the burbling mantra, the chant that never ceases, repeating its message that all is one. What she thought was her life is all maya, all

Such precious, precious water, Lord, water from our own well; this water that is our covenant with You, with this soil, with the life You granted us. We are born and baptized in this water, we grow full of pride, we sin, we are broken, we suffer, but with water we are cleansed of our transgressions, we are forgiven, and we are born again, day after day till the end of our days. Her mat takes her weight kindly, eases

Make your life something beautiful for God.

Without Genet as a witness, nothing I did was meaningful.

This is the covenant of water: that they're all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone. She stays there listening to the burbling mantra, the chant that never ceases, repeating its message that all is one. What she thought was her life is all maya, all illusion, but it is one shared illusion. And what else can she do but go on.

All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is this moment!

Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life, and faith is the oil

understood for the first time that having a child was about cheating death. Children were the foot wedged in the closing door, the glimmer of hope that in reincarnation there would be some house to go to, even if one came back as a dog, or a mouse, or a flea that lived on the bodies of men. If

Ammachi, when I come to the end of a book and I look up, just four days have passed. But in that time I've lived through three generations and learned more about the world and about myself than I do during a year in school. Ahab, Queequeg, Ophelia, and other characters die on the page so that we might live better lives.

As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled. She

Life comes from God and life is precious precisely because it is brief. God's gift is time. However much or however little one has of it, it comes from him.

the retrospectoscope, that handy tool of the wags and pundits, the conveners of the farce we call M&M—morbidity and mortality conference—will pronounce your decision right or wrong. Life, too, is like that.

He thinks of his loving sister, and the narrow, confined life she lived that never seemed that way to her, and how much she enriched their lives. He was her "precious baby," never aging for her, just as she never aged. Strangers might feel sorry for Baby Mol, but if they'd understood how happy she was, how fully she lived in the present, inhabiting each second, they'd have been envious.

What is worry but fear of what the future holds? Baby Mol lives completely in the present and is spared all worry.

this water that is our covenant with you, with this soil, with the Life you granted us.We are born and baptized in this water, we grow full of pride, we sinew are broken, we suffer, but with water we are cleansed of our transgressions, we are forgiven, and we are born again, day after day till the end of our days.