Quotes About Reflection

Despite everything he had or might have (except, of course, another human being), life gave no promise of improvement or even of change. The way things shaped up, he would live out his life with no more than he already had. And how many years was that? Thirty, maybe forty if he didn't drink himself to death. The thought of forty more years of living as he was made him shudder

He turned away from the bar as if he could leave the question there. But questions had no location; they could follow him around.

I don the robe of hermit without a cry.

I wish I were a boy again-unquestioning, with no need to analyze the moment.

He brushed his teeth carefully and used dental floss. He tried to take good care of his teeth because he was his own dentist now. Some things could go to pot, but not his health, he thought. Then why don't you stop pouring alcohol into yourself? he thought. Why don't you shut the hell up? he thought.

I looked at all the people, feeling sorry for them. They were still subordinate to clock and calendar. Absolved of that, I stood becalmed.

Staring down at the brook, I remembered a stream near Mammoth Lake. We'd parked the camper just above it and, all night, listened to it splashing across rocks and stones; a lovely sound.

The death of someone with whom a person has been long and closely associated leaves a literal vacuum in that person's life

To look at the entire journey all at once was stupidity. You thought of it in segments; that was the only way.

The red hands had stopped at four-twenty-seven. He wondered what day they had stopped. As he descended the stairs with his armful of books, he wondered at just what moment the clock stopped. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped?

He kept thinking about Mary. What a fool he'd been to let her go. To think, with the thoughtless assurance of youth, that the world was replete with endless possibilities. He'd thought it a mistake to choose so early in life and embrace the present good. He'd been a great one for looking for greener pastures. He'd kept looking until all his pastures were brown with time. (Old Haunts)

Cornered again, Mr. Cook reluctantly made a third duplicate; then a fourth, a fifth. The city, albeit large, soon became thick with William O. Cooks. He would come upon himself at corners, discover himself asking himself for lights, end up, quite literally, beside himself.

It's a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging." I'd been looking at the ceiling as he spoke. At his final words, I turned to face him in surprise. "Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?" "In essence." He nodded. "A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds—and misdeeds.

No, no, there was danger there. It was thinking of the past that drove him to the bottle. He was just going to have to accept the present.

Another day. Another collection of wracking hours.

From that day on he learned to accept the dungeon he existed in, neither seeking to escape with sudden derring-do nor beating his pate bloody on its walls. And, thus resigned, he returned to work.

he'd thought the past was dead. How long did it take for a past to die? She

There was no sound but that of his shoes and the now senseless singing of birds. Once I thought they sang because everything was right with the world, Robert Neville thought. I know now I was wrong. They sing because they're feeble-minded.

And he wonders, deep in the self-isolated recesses of his mind whether he is killing himself with anger, whether he is destroying his system with fury.

With words I have knit my shroud and will bury myself therein

Each man's life is a tome of episodes. Consider all the moments of your life enumerated one by one with full description.

Of only one thing I am certain. If the manuscript is true, all of us had better examine our lives. Carefully.

Then he sat down beside the casket and rested his forehead against its cold metal side. Silence held him in its cold and gentle hands.

Silence held him in its cold and gentle hands.