Quotes About Connection

One paradigm is shared by the largest community of all: the human race. This is the paradigm that I call the Universal Human Paradigm. It is a "master" paradigm, by which I mean that all other paradigms held by people are subsets of it.

This is why I love poems: they invite me to sit down and listen to a voice speaking thoughtfully and passionately about what it feels like to be alive.

Is it strange to say love is a language Few practice, but all, or near all speak?

We saw to the edge of all there is - So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.

How wonderful would it be if trust, or even love, might be possible between any of us — or even all of us. I mean, if we let ourselves believe such a thing is possible.

This is why I love poems: they require me to sit still, listen deeply, and imagine putting myself in someone else's unfamiliar shoes. The world I return to when the poem is over seems fuller and more comprehensible as a result.

There is a We in this poem To which everyone belongs. As in We the People-- In order to form a more perfect Union-- And: We were objects of much curiosity To the Indians-- And: The next we present before you Are things very appalling-- And: We find we are living, suffering, loving, Dying a story. We had not known otherwise-- We 's a huckster, trickster, has pluck. We will draw you in.

What's heavy Grounds us to the world.

Many people find it easy to imagine unseen webs of malevolent conspiracy in the world, and they are not always wrong. But there is also an innocence that conspires to hold humanity together, and it is made of people who can never fully know the good that they have done.

When writers stop believing in their own stories, readers tend to sense it.

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.

We're all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more.

Listen to me: die after me, all right? I don't care what else you do, where you go, how you screw up your life, just... survive. Outlive me, please.

BARBARA: Johnna . . . what did my father say to you? (Pause.) JOHNNA: He talked a lot about his daughters . . . his three daughters, and his granddaughter. That was his joy. BARBARA: Thank you. That makes me feel better. Knowing that you can lie.

JOHNNA: When a Cheyenne baby is born, their umbilical cord is dried and sewn into this pouch. Turtles for girls, lizards for boys. And we wear it for the rest of our lives. JEAN: Wow. JOHNNA: Because if we lose it, our souls belong nowhere and after we die our souls will walk the Earth looking for where we belong.

IVY: This isn't whimsy. This isn't fleeting. This is unlike anything I've ever felt, for anybody. Charles and I have something rare, and extraordinary, something very few people ever have. KAREN: Which is what? IVY: Understanding.

I don't know what it says about me that I have a greater affinity with the damaged. Probably nothing good.

You know, I've buried so many of my friends, I got callouses on my hands from carrying caskets. Folks my age, or who would be my age. It's tough, sometimes, just not to find people you can sit with, talk to.

You get somebody to crack a smile, that's a beautiful thing.

What we do as individuals in daily life will affect not just us but other people, the world at large, and even the universe. At

I know what it feels like to miss everything about him--the way he smells, the way his mouth curls up when he laughs, his voice.

For just this moment, he wanted her to see him for who he was, without the pity he knew she'd feel when she found out the truth.

I've been working on my relationship with my parents and my sister over the years.

I wish people would turn off their computers, go outside, talk to people, touch people, lick people, enjoy each other's company and smell each other on the rump.