Quotes About Connection

but how nice it was for that brief period of time to feel like someone had her back, whether he was right with her or not. If he was in the world, he was watching over her.

If we look at the path, we do not see the sky. We are earth people on a spiritual journey to the stars. Our quest, our earth walk, is to look within, to know who we are, to see that we are connected to all things, that there is no separation, only in the mind. —Native American

He wanted to be the guy standing in the dimness by their kids' beds as Nola kissed them, and then he would kiss them, too. "Night," he'd say. Why did that single word offer so much comfort? He guessed it was because it said so much. Home. Safety. The prospect of another day together as soon as morning came. He wanted to walk down the stairs to the living room afterward, and sit with Nola in the lamplight and talk.

her heart has opened.

Thought it was funny to answer his phone by saying, "You DID?

the palace of we

He'd come to realize people were made for that: sharing, being with one another.

CONTENTS COVER PAGE TITLE PAGE DEDICATION APRIL 1943 VALENTINE'S DAY, 1946 SEPTEMBER 2006 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ALSO

I'm just saying I think people are meant to be with people. You suffer in a marriage; but alone, you suffer more. Did you ever read that Mark Twain book Extracts from Adam's Diary? Adam thought Eve was a real pain in the ass, talking too much, looking at her reflection in the pond all the time, getting them expelled from Paradise, for Christ's sake! But what he said at the end was that he was better off living outside the Garden with Eve than inside it without her.

You just sat with her and right away you started being treated like a popular person.

That is the gift of love, not only that you have somebody but that you are changed by somebody.

you once lay there, the vernix not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.

Earth's the right place for love.

Every mother has the assurance that her baby will love her. But a baby has no assurance at all of being loved in return.

He resents the very posture of people who are online, the way they bend their backs over their various devices, blocking out any possibility that they might engage with a real live person, who would never come with enough apps to satisfy them

Working in the garden shows me the naturalness of it all, helps me to see that as much as I might resist the notion, I'm only one part of a bigger picture.

You know, if I've learned anything in my life, it's this: you can push away everything but love. It will not leave. It will wait. Unto death, it will wait. You might as well accept it. You might as well give it freely, too—even more than freely. Anything else is pure exhaustion.

He resents the very posture of people who are online, the way they bend their backs over their various devices, blocking out any possibility that they might engage with a real live person, who would never come with enough apps to satisfy them, let's face it.

The only thing wrong in making love was being intimate with one you in fact did not love.

Funny how important those birds have become to her. But people need something to depend on. They need something to love.

Arthur realizes that if he were alone, it would be a grim wait...with the girl, it's an adventure. That's what being with another does. He remembers now, with something like a full body flush. He remembers what it means to share something with someone. The particular alchemy that can light things up.

I will come back as a little breeze," she says. "You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I'm still listening. So you can still talk to me.

MADDY FEELS HER MOTHER SOMETIMES AS A GLOW IN HER BRAIN, AS A KNOCK AT HER HEART, AS A WHISPER SHE CAN'T QUITE HEAR.

What is it that makes a family? Certainly, no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our heart. Thank you for inviting my father, who is not my real family, but to whom I am also tied.