Quotes About Contemplation

Se regarder scrupuleusement soi-même, ne regarder que discrètement les autres.

We have two lives; the second begins when we realize we only have one.

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing.

It looks a lot better from up here than it does down there, dont it? Yes. It does. There's a lot of things look better at a distance. Yeah? I think so. I guess there are. The life you've lived, for one. Yeah. Maybe what of it you aint lived yet, too.

She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

There were times when he sat watching the boy sleep that he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it wasn't about death. He wasn't sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or goodness. Things that he'd no longer any way to think about at all.

Where you've nothing else, construct ceremonies out of the air, and breathe upon them.

Toward early morning he woke, sat up quickly and looked about him. It was still dark and the fire had long since died, still dark and quiet with that silence that seems to be of itself listening, an astral quiet where planets collide soundlessly, beyond the auricular dimension altogether. He listened. Above the black ranks of trees the mid-summer sky arched cloudless and coldly starred. He lay back and stared at it and after a while he slept.

If the world itself is a horror then there is nothing to fix and the only thing you could be protected from would be the contemplation of it.

God was not interested in our theology but only in our silence.

He walked to the top of a rise and crouched and watched the day accrue. The chary dawn, the cold illucid world.

He looked like he was studying something small in the grass.

All through the long dusk

He sat leaning forward in the seat with his elbows on the empty seatback in front of him and his chin on his forearms and he watched the play with great intensity. He'd notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not. There was nothing in it at all.

Billy lit a cigarette with a brand from the fire and laid the brand back He smoked. It looks a lot better from up here than it doesn down there, dont it? Yes. It does. There's a lot of things look better at a distance. Yeah? I think so. I guess there are. The life you've lived, for one. Yeah. Maybe what of it you aint lived yet, too.

After a while he pulled his hat down over his eyes and stood and placed his hands outstretched on the roof of the cab and rode in that manner. As if he were some personage bearing news for the countryside. As if he were some newfound evangelical being conveyed down out of the mountains....

I don't mean to upset you, but reflective men often find themselves at a certain remove from the realities of life.

Things will be better when everybody's gone. They will? Sure they will. Better for who? Everybody.

I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

Meanin I guess that he seen somebody in a place low enough to where he ought to be ready to take a pretty big step.

No one spoke. There was none to curse and none to pray, we just watched.

He sat with his back to a rock and felt the warmth of the sun on his face and watched it pool and flare and drain away dragging with it all that pink and rose and crimson sky.

Contemplating death is supposed to have a certain philosophical value. Palliative even. Trivial to say, but the best way to die well is to live well. To die for another would give your death meaning. Ignoring for the time being the fact that the other is going to die anyway.