Quotes About Community

That's very important about stories. They touch something that is human in us and is probably unchanging. Perhaps this is why the important knowledge is passed through stories. It's what holds a culture together. Culture has a story, and every person in it participates in that story. They world is made up of stories; it's not made up of facts.

We have to be educated by the other. My heart cannot be educated by myself. It can only come out of a relationship with others. And if we accept being educated by others, to let them explain to us what happens to them, and to let yourself be immersed in their world so that they can get into our world, then you begin to share something very deep. You will never be the person in front of you, but you will have created what we call communion.

Now is a powerful time in this country for young people and others to be asking the question, What are we for? Do we exist for some reason other than competing with China or finding the best possible technological advances?

At the right temperatures, geologic faults allow for movement, ductility, flow. Earthquakes happen when weaknesses cannot be expressed. "And communities which are rigid, which do not take into account the weak points of the community—people who are in difficulty—tend to be communities that do not evolve. When they do evolve, it's generally by a very strong commotion, a revolution.

Lonely is one of the adjectives people like Shane Claiborne use, alongside unsustainable, to describe the culture of adulthood they grew up watching.

But what we did is we studied our town. We did an inventory of all of the things that were present there—farms and marshes and springs and historic sites, Indian trails, buildings, our tobacco farms included. And what happened after we did this very careful and very extensive inventory is, we fell in love with the place. Most of us didn't know where we lived. We had just moved in and out rather oblivious to the beauty of things.

It's not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It's about healing the world that touches you, that's around you.

the question isn't whether we're going to have to do hard, awful things, because we are. We all are. The question is whether we have to do them alone.

W. H. Auden, "We must love one another or die." That is, I think, where we are at the beginning of the 21st century. And since we really can love one another, I have a great deal of hope.

And it is in the whole educational system, that we must educate people to become capable and to take their place in society. That has value, obviously. But it's not quite the same thing as to educate people to relate, to listen, to help people to become themselves.

We now know that doing good to others, having a network of strong and supportive relationships, and having a sense that one's life is worthwhile are the three greatest determinants of happiness.

My phone dings with a text. Mom: I bought you a rape whistle. There was a gangland slaying on your street last week.

You'll be surprised at how kind most people are.

proudly living in a refrigerator-sized apartment with three other students.

New York City is a good place to come to forget your misery. So many people, so many ages and races and stories. Virtually everyone had had, was currently nursing or would have a broken heart. There were a thousand stories worse than mine.

Adopt a Brownie Troop. Memoir classes. Field trips and blood drives.

Rosie and I went to Planned Parenthood together. "They'll have all kinds of information," she said. "It's not just for abortions.

He's had some drug and alcohol issues, but he's getting clean now." Oh, fuckety fucking McFuckster. Not bad enough that he still had a chip on his shoulder. He was a drug addict, too. And lived just down the road. "Think he's dangerous?

Mrs. Plutarski is such a pill to me. You'd think I routinely crapped on the altar, the way she treats me.

How many men are stupid enough to dump two Emerson girls?" Dad asked. "Too bad we're not mobbed up. We could have his body dumped in the Farmington River.

after all, hospitality was a virtue, one of the highest in Mamma's esteem.

The police cannot be considered simply the custodians of the legal order, but must be seen as the guardians of the social order as well. That they defend it wearing blue uniforms rather than white sheets is a matter of only minor importance.

If we accept that police forces arose at a particular point in history, to address specific social conditions, then it follows that social change could also eliminate the institution. The first half of this syllogism is readily admitted, the second half is heresy.

We're so special, when you look in the dictionary under short bus, there's a group picture of us,'' Stevie Rae said, sounding weak but definately alive.