Quotes About Growth

I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.

I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love, you know?

Too bad I didn't know you back then, I would have come and rescued you. Like he was Prince Charming or something. Which he is, in a way, because he rescued me from the simple, uncomplicated life I thought I liked until I realized how much I was missing. How lonely that life had been: going to work, going home, and watching TV, going places by myself on weekends.

The world is made of stairs; some go up and some go down. . . .

I'm glad you're seeing someone," she said. "You and Thomas had a pretty complex relationship. You've spent an enormous amount of emotional energy on Thomas. Your whole life. Now, you're going to have to take all of that energy and . . . reinvest it, I guess. It's bound to be a complicated process.

Forgiveness is the rich loam from which love can grow.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference. Viveca comes downstairs first and heads into the

I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.

Look back on the past but don't stare

What if I don't like adventure?" I said. Ruth dragged over a kitchen chair and sat down facing me. "Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That's how you grow.

Being in your mid-thirties brought benefits, I reminded myself. You began to appreciate tidiness, smallness, things in their place.

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean But I shall be good health to you nonetheless And filter and fibre your blood.

have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?

Agonies are one of my changes of garments.

These are the days that must happen to you

I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower.

There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he looked upon, that object he became...

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runway sun, I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again look for me under your boot soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent, My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

The past and the present wilt. I have fill'd them, emptied them, And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you. -from A Song of Occupations

Sun so generous it shall be you- Leaves of Grass