Quotes About Reflection

There are days that walk through me and I cannot hold them.

Church always seemed the same. Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free.

the long train ride was like traveling through limbo. You weren't anywhere when you were on a train, she decided. You weren't where you had been, and you weren't yet where you were going. You were nowhere. It might be beautiful outside the window-and it was, she had sense enough to realize that-but it wasn't anywhere to her, just a scene passing by that was framed by the train window. (p160)

Many people are angry when they make a mistake, but very few people have the sense to be sorry.

I have been mocked by beauty, too. But it was the beauty which cost me nothing that in the end turned upon me.

The very persons who have taken away my time and space are those who have given me something to say.

If we marvel at the artist who has written a great book, we must marvel more at those people whose lives are works of art and who don't even know it, who wouldn't believe it if they were told. However hard work good writing may be, it is easier than good living.

when I am in a foreign city and feel even the slightest bit disoriented, I can feel the panic of that day on the Hong Kong street begin to rise in my chest. My story of being lost ended quickly and happily, but it still haunts me.

Thinking about myself as a crazy, independent old woman made me feel almost happy.

I had no study in those days, not even a desk or file or bookcase to call mine alone....It might have happened sooner [the writing of work worthy of publication] had I had a room of my own and fewer children, but somehow I doubt it. For as I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who took away my time and space are those who have given me something to say.

They decided they were too hooked on money and success, so they bought that old farm and they're going to farm it and think about what's important.

He thought later how peculiar it was that here was probably the biggest thing in his life, and he had shrugged it off as nothing.

Like God in the Bible, they looked at what they had made and found it very good

The growth of the imagination demands windows-windows through which we can look out at the world and windows through which we can look into ourselves. The old stories were windows in just this way.

He put down his roll and reached over and took her gnarled hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. I'm trying to tell the child something only you and I can understand. How good it is to be old. I watched her face go from being startled by his gesture to being pleased that he had somehow joined her side against me. Then she seemed to remember. She drew back her hand. We'll die, she said. Yes, he said. But we'll be ready. The young ones never are.

Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care - everything - even the predators.)

Then the Calm kept going. And I realized that my body, mind, and soul needed this time to integrate some of the enormous changes that were going on. I started to appreciate Calm. These last few weeks I feel like I'm getting my spark back.

Away from home.

How do you unlove somebody?

Then put this behind you. You don't have to change who you are because of one mistake. You only have to make sure you don't repeat it.

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.

As I turn and walk toward Murray Hill and home and purring Phoebe, I suspect that we do not know any more than the people of the past did, but only think somewhat differently.

The name of the exhibit that my body is in, here with good ol' Sergeant Stubby, is The Price of Freedom. When they point from the other side of the glass, Freedom isn't free, I hear the patriots say. Blah, blah, blah. They're right, but not for the reasons they think they are. The Great War cost me a lot, and although it's not a competition, on this, the eve of my centenary, I can honestly conclude that it cost Whit more.