Quotes About Reflection

The room is still quite cold when the list of achievements is read but the atmosphere quickens when you hear what they loved, what they held in their affections…you realize what you learn you have lost [in someone dying] is you've lose what they loved and everything else is like chafe blown away.

The first step in spending time alone is to admit how afraid of it we are.

Winning does not tempt that man, this is how he grows, by being defeated decisively, by greater and greater beings.

Sometimes with the bones of the black sticks left when the fire has gone out someone has written something new in the ashes of your life. You are not leaving. Even as the light fades quickly now, you are arriving.

THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD (excerpt) The sound of a bell still reverberating, or a blackbird calling from a corner of a field. Asking you to wake into this life or inviting you deeper to one that waits. Either way takes courage, either way wants you to be nothing but that self that is no self at all, wants you to walk to the place where you find you already know how to give every last thing away.

How quickly we forget God's great deliverances in our lives. How easily we take for granted the miracles he performed in our past.

It should have been the epiphany of the sixties. Instead it turned out to be its requiem,

What I feel is the momentary shock of realizing that most of the wood, metal and plastic fixtures, the sinks, lampshades, the shower stall, and even the drinking cups will all outlive me if my body follows the same progression that this tiny invisible-to-the-eye virus has initiated.

I remembered a friend of mine dying from AIDS, and while he was visiting his family on the coast for the last time, he was seated in the grass during a picnic to which dozens of family members were invited. He looked up from his fried chicken and said, "I just want to die with a big dick in my mouth.

John cursed himself. Or rather, he cursed the past version of himself for so thoughtlessly screwing over the current version of himself.

That ability to see the right choice, but not until several hours have passed since making the wrong one? That's what makes a person a dumbass, folks.

And, well, that's my story," I said. "I'm sorry that it's so, you know. Retarded.

Here's what's going to happen: You're going to die and you're going to stand at the gates of judgement and you're going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, 'I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to YOU to give it meaning'.

We moved in silence for a moment and I said, "How did we screw this all up so badly, John?" He shook his head. "We always find a way.

John jolted awake to find himself staring down a shotgun wielded by his greatest enemy: himself.

but anyway he says that when you read the Bible, the Devil looks back at you through the pages.

At your age, life is full of possibilities. But as the years pass, those possibilities vanish, one by one, like doors closing in a hallway. You feel time slip by, and your energy slip away. One day, you realize you're too old to be a famous musician, or change careers, or have more children. And each of those closed doors represents a regret. As you get older, well, those regrets come to define you.

I squinted drunkenly into the rearview mirror and tried in vain to find the headlights of the black truck that was chasing us, but I actually wasn't sure if its drivers needed headlights to see or if they even had eyes. I also wasn't sure it was a truck, or if it was black, or if we were being pursued at all. It was definitely raining, though.

I stared out of the window, at my Bronco rusting in the parking lot, the metal eager to get back to just being dirt. Life was probably easier for it back then.

here's what's going to happen: you're going to die and you're going to stand at the gates of judgment and you're going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, 'I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to you to give it meaning.

It would have been a good occasion to smoke a pipe had I owned one and had I been forty years older.

mental state

I collect. Though I guess that wording would imply that I seek this stuff out; I actually meant "collect" in the way that dead bugs "collect" on your windshield.

Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise