Quotes About Contemplation

She kept her face to the floor, moving in her personal oblivion, her sunflower eyes fixed on the predicament of her life we would never understand

Emerson said, "I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the still, small voice.

I ask you: is dullness a gift? Intelligence a curse? I'm fort-seven years old and live alone.

as if Laurie had recited the Apostles' Creed in perfect Latin, and resumed tidying up the pews, humming along with the choir, occasionally making brief, quiet remarks to no one in particular, in a tone that was both friendly and respectful. She was just thinking

People who climb mountains are lonely people; loneliness is needed. Acquaintances and friends are great things, but climbers need defined mental space that is untouched and unbothered by anyone.

I like the idea of keeping my thoughts all in one place, like a brain you can look into.

I do not think that hour there told me anything I could not have imagined myself, but being there, in that silence, gave me hope that at least there are no wars after death. I

There is a long time in me between knowing and telling." —GRACE PALEY

Jo inhaled slowly, trying to think of all the time she'd had with her granddaughters, and not everything that she'd miss.

She lay awake on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until it was six o'clock and her husband got up, quietly, to put on his running clothes, feigning sleep until she heard the front door open, and close. Then she lay there for another hour, wondering if she could continue to live like this, and, if not, what she was supposed to do next.

on noon at Friday

At times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioning.

Of what are you thinking now? she asked. I am thinking of myself. That's just what I am doing. Are you also thinking of yourself? No, of yourself—of you, Mogens.

And each night in bed I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered my shade to make it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.

I had to get out. Move. I ran through neighborhoods, other lives, other worlds. Solipsism. A man on his lawn mower. Green and yellow. A high-school kid with earphones, washing his car, suds creeping down the driveway. High in the bright blue sky the moon showed like a fading fingerprint. It seemed so weak, so out of place, as if it stumbled into broad daylight by mistake. Unseen protons dying by the billions.

And each night in bed I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered my shade to make it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side...

For hours I lay under my sheet of moonlight. Her voice came through the night, from the light, from the stars.

Give me a minute,' I told her. I sat on the cold, clumpy ground. I turned my back on the smudgy sunrise so that I was facing west, facing you. I closed my eyes and I did something I've been thinking about: I sent you a message. A question. I hope you receive it. Then I got up and we left.

We walked in silence. Yellow blooms had appeared on a cactus, and for some reason that made me incredibly sad. The purple of the mountains flowed like watercolour. (P. 103) ~ Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then–maybe-the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.

each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories

It must be important. I tiptoe back outside.

Then she tried to bore herself to sleep by thinking about things like yogurt and the structure of a gas pedal.

They must have stopped the world. They just must have.