Quotes About Contemplation

Your thoughts have given up, finally.

I wonder who I will know when I die, if anyone.

I don't let my thoughts plan on anything, even their completion. I once tried to select some way to be.

Do I need him? Do I really have to have this life?

For days and nights I didn't know if I wanted to live

little whispering fidgeting of a shut-away congregation wondering who to pray to

the hour has not yet ended in which under a cloth of laurel I sat quite still.

into the lane he dropped not once looking up

when a man rolls over and sighs

cold nights without streetlights walking to the sea perhaps

not looking up but lost in pause

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.

God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is life with God which demands these things. . . . You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that the darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it." — ANNIE DILLARD1

If I want to be alone, some place I can write, I can read, I can pray, I can cry, I can do whatever I want - I go to the bathroom.

The mind is a leaf pile where you can bury anything....

Habrá alguna ciudad en el mundo que tenga un monumento reivindicatorio a la prostituta? ¿Un monumento rodeado de jardines y de tristeza, un monumento frente al cual las mujeres suspiren y los hombres se llenen de vergüenza?

Only half-aware of the movements of his body, she turned her head to one side and stared up at the ceiling, where she noticed a spider's web.

You have a good argument, Karen. And, would you be willing to consider this from another point of view?

To imagine wasn't to escape but to go deeper; to see through to the secret life of the world.

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information but to face sacred moments.

Like the shore changing with the swing of the tides, I seem to be uncovering long-hidden propensities, dormant aspects of myself newly exposed by the pull of the moon. For here I am when the tide goes out - speeder slowing down, fighter finding harmony, activist turned contemplative, analyzer seeking synthesis, communard become solitaire, rationalist grown spiritual, teacher turned student, desired dissolving in contentment.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?

The thing is, I've been thinking a lot about before . The time before the first thing I remember. Before didn't hurt. I don't think this will hurt, either. My ending, I mean. I'll just 'not be' again, I suppose.