Quotes About Connection

As one tends to the graves of the dead, so I tend the books. I clean them, do minor repairs, keep them in good order. And every day I open a volume or two, read a few lines or pages, allow the voices of the forgotten dead to resonate inside my head. Do they sense it, these dead writers, when their books are read? Does a pinprick of light appear in their darkness? Is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading theirs? I do hope so, for it must be very lonely being dead.

My mother and I were like two continents moving slowly but inexorably apart; my father, the bridge builder, constantly extending the fragile edifice he had constructed to connect us.

In the background is the hiss of the gas heater; we hear the sound without hearing it for, side by side, together and miles apart, we are deep in our books.

The line between life and death is narrow and dark, and a bereaved twin lives closer to it than most.

Kita semua memiliki kesedihan kita sendiri, dan walaupun kontur, bobot, serta dimensinya berbeda-beda bagi setiap orang, warna kesedihan adalah sama bagi kita semua.

Un nacimiento no es, en realidad, una introducción. Nuestra vida, cuando empieza, no es realmente nuestra, sino la continuación de la historia de otro.

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes—characters even—caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

So they became friends, the way old married couples often do, and enjoyed the tender loyalty that awaits the lucky on the other side of passion, without ever living the passion itself.

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes – characters even – caught in the fibres of your clothes, and when you open the new book they are still with you.

Our lives are so important to us that we tend to think the story of them begins with our birth. First there was nothing, then I was born... Yet that is not so. Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.

What is it that allows human beings to see through each other's pretendings? For I understood quite clearly in that moment that she was anxious. Perhaps emotions have a smell or a taste; perhaps we transmit them unknowingly by vibrations in the air. Whatever the means, I knew just as surely that it was nothing about me in particular that alarmed her, but only the fact that I had come and was a stranger.

Do they sense it, these dead writers, when their books are read? Does a pinprick of light appear in their darkness? Is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading theirs? I do hope so. For it must be very lonely being dead.

Yesterday or the day before, while I had been going about my business, quietly and in private, some unknown person—some stranger—had gone to the trouble of marking my name onto this envelope. Who was it who had had his mind's eye on me while I hadn't suspected a thing?

Sarà che le emozioni hanno un odore, o un sapore; sarà che le trasmettiamo inconsapevolmente inviando vibrazioni nell'aria.

I know,' he said, because he was human, and therefore, in a way, he did.

There is something about words.

Everybody has a story

He put an arm around me, I know, he said. I know. He didn't know, of course. Not really. And yet that was what he said, and I was soothed to hear it. For I knew what he meant. We all have our sorrows, and although the exact delineaments, weight and dimensions of grief are different for everyone, the color of grief is common to us all. I know, he said, because he was human, and therefore, in a way, he did.

Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.

For me, to see is to read. It has always been that way.

We all have our sorrows, and although the exact delineaments, the weight and the dimensions of grief are different for everyone, the colour of grief is common to us all. 'I know,' he said, because he was human, and therefore, in a way, he did.

but I have come to see that when two people work closely together on a joint project—two intelligent people, I mean to say—a bond of communication develops between them that can enhance their work. All the while they are jointly engaged on a task, they are aware of, acutely sensitive to, each other's tiniest movements, and can interpret them accordingly.

but I have come to see that when two people work closely together on a joint project—two intelligent people, I mean to say—a bond of communication develops between them that can enhance their work.

What is it that allows human beings to see through each other's pretendings? For I understood quite clearly in that moment that she was anxious. Perhaps emotions have a smell or taste; perhaps we transmit them unknowingly by vibrations in the air. Whatever the means, I knew just as surely that it was nothing about me in particular that alarmed her, but only the fact that I had come and was a stranger.