Quotes About Change

With every step I felt lighter. An emotion was swelling in my throat. It took me a moment to recognize what it was. I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.

For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such a power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt.

Well? What do you have to say to me? You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you.

All those years I had spent with them were like a stone tossed in a pool. Already, the ripples were gone.

Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.

Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different color, a different foam-capped height, but always the same restless intensity pulling towards the horizon.

The beach ebbed and flowed, its curves changing with every winter season. Even the cliffs were different, carved by the rain and wind, by the claws of countless scrabbling lizards, by the seeds that stuck and sprouted in their cracks. Everything was united by the steady rise and fall of nature's breath. Everything except for me.

I gaped at the cold shock of his beauty, deep-green eyes, features fine as a girl's. It struck from me a sudden, springing dislike. I had not changed so much, nor so well.

I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer. Then, child, make another.

You cannot make that promise, I wanted to shout. You know nothing. But whose fault was that? I had kept the face of the world veiled from him. I had painted his history in bright, bold colors, and he had fallen in love with my art. And now it was too late to go back and change it. If I was so old, I should be wise. I should know better than to howl when the bird was already flown.

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another... We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows? Perhaps one day I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you... We are men only. A brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please.

would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.

Tear down, I thought. Tear down and build again.

I had painted his history in bright, bold colours and he had fallen in love with my art. And now it was too late to go back and change it.

You have been tame your whole life, and now you will be sorry. Yes Father, yes Father—see what it gets you.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?

But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.

I could have sat and worked awhile, but the change of hands would show in the cloth.

Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different color,

you can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ~ Odysseus

That is how things go. You fix them, and they go awry, and then you fix them again.

In the old days I would have rushed forth with a brimming cup of answers, to give him all he wanted. But I was not the same as I had been.

Stories last longer: but only by becoming only stories.

Well, do you do that consciously? Daily Alice asked, only partly of Cloud. Do what? Cloud said. Grow up? No. Well. In a sense. You see it's inevitable, or refuse to. You greet it or don't -- take it in trade, maybe, for all you're going to lose anyway. Or you can refuse, and have what you've got to lose snatched from you, and never take payment -- never see a trade is possible.