Quotes About Transition

Man is at his most stubborn when his religious, socioeconomic, or political beliefs need change.

Instead, we prepare for the next jump, then the one after, until after a lifetime of motion is past, we are startled, at least a little, by where we are and by what we have become.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

What must it feel like, I wondered, to begin again? Would I still be the same person if I woke up in a different language and another existence?

Tomorrow begins from another dawn, when we will be fast asleep.

What mattered was the here and now and not the life before, what mattered were the changeable things of today and tomorrow and not the ever, infinitely, unbearably changing yesterday.

Having an involved father is a strong predictor of a child's eventual level of empathy. Optimally this involvement should begin when children are starting elementary school. Moving from preschool to elementary school is a big transition for kids. Dads, who often take the lead on making the outside world enticing, appear to grease the wheels and make this transition easier. This effect is equally marked for young girls and boys alike.

I also know two steps forward and one step back is the rule, not the exception, as people work on change.

All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal's voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.

I did not plan to live after he was gone.

I would not be able to bear it, I thought. I would seize him, hold him to me. But I only embraced him a final time, pressing hard as if to set him into my skin. Then I watched him take his place among them, stand upon the prow, outlined against the sky. The light darted silver from the waves. I lifted my hand in blessing and gave my son to the world.

Transformation touched only bodies, not minds.

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

This was how I came to be ten, and an orphan. This is how I came to Phthia.

The numbness now is merciful. A last few moments of it. Then, the fall.

Everybody grows up by leaps, and not by a steady climb like a mountaineer.

Aside from anything else marriage may have provided the young grand duchess, it enabled Marie to drop her title and the Romanov name, now considered indecent by the public.

Nothing goes on forever. And if you stay patient, problems tend to go away in time.

Death is an ascension to a better library.

In Heaven, it is always Autumn.

The young man walks fast by himself through the crowd that thins into the night streets;

To die is landing on some distant shore.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long — Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

After I finish a phone call and before I start something else, I simply pause. When I pull into work in the morning and when I pull into my driveway in the evening, I pause.