Quotes About Wonder

It is the childlike part of us that produces works of the imagination. When we were children time passed so slow with us that we seemed to have time for everything.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream.

The period of childhood is a stage on which time and space become entangled.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

This land, although not my native land, Will be remembered forever. And the sea's lightly iced, Unsalty water. The sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk, The air is heady, like wine, And the rosy body of the pines Is naked in the sunset hour. And the sunset itself on such waves of ether That I just can't comprehend Whether it is the end of the day, the end of the world, Or the mystery of mysteries in me again.

Every reader, I suspect, has a book like this somewhere in his or her past, a book that seemed to hold within it, at that moment, all the mysteries of the universe.

Perhaps we are the world's great nomads, if only in our minds.

That's why I ask." "What

The only wonder was that he should be in an under situation and not in the place of a head coachman like York;

Because the road is rough and long, Shall we despise the skylark's song, That cheers the wanderer's way? Or trample down, with reckless feet, The smiling flowerets, bright and sweet, Because they soon decay?

When my foot was on the sands and my face towards the broad, bright bay, no language can describe the effect of the deep, clear azure of the sky and ocean, the bright morning sunshine on the semicircular barrier of craggy cliffs surmounted by green swelling hills, and on the smooth, wide sands, and the low rocks out at sea—looking, with their clothing of weeds and moss, like little grass-grown islands—and above all, on the brilliant, sparkling waves. 

Adónde habría llegado la maravillosa niña que, sin saberlo, ha escrito esta especie de obra maestra?

I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.

I remember staring at my son endlessly when he was an infant, stunned by his very existence, wondering where on earth he had come from.

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, Well, that's pretty much what I thought I'd see, you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. [...] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Wonder takes our breath away, and makes room for new breath. That's why they call it breathtaking.

When you love something like reading—or drawing or music or nature—it surrounds you with a sense of connection to something great.

What can we say beyond Wow, in the presence of glorious art, in music so magnificent that it can't have originated solely on this side of things? Wonder takes our breath away, and makes room for new breath.

when humans experience something as powerful as a forest or a rainbow, it is not crazy to assign its existence to a Greater Intelligence.

I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.

You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we're finally starting to get somewhere. It is so much more comfortable to think that we know what it all means, what to expect and how it all hangs together. When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it's down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is "Wow," that's a prayer.

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of—please forgive me—wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.

When Sam was six or so, he explained to me why we call God God: Because when you see something so great, you just go, 'God!