Quotes About Reflection

Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.

Orpheus struck dumb with hindsight.

Don't turn your back upon your doctrinal doubts and difficulties. Go up to them and examine them. Perhaps the ghastly object which looks to you in the twilight like a sheeted ghost may prove to be no more than a table-cloth hanging upon a hedge.

The mind is like the stomach. It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests.

On the rocks of a bay so blue, it made her gray eyes glow.

I want to explore what it means to be human, but not just the most extreme elements of humanity. The quiet moments. The times when the world isn't exploding, but we're still trying to determine who we are and how can we make this thing called life work. And I want to do it while writing about space squids and moon-eating monster gods.

I wanted to glance one last time over my shoulder, but there was no reason to. Looking behind would only show me the things I'd seen, and everything of importance I could always see

Judy went back to Paulie's place, but either he wasn't home or he wasn't answering his door. After banging on the door for four minutes, then waiting another ten, she decided she'd probably have to find someplace else to crash today She wished she'd taken the time to actually have a few friends.

Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off 'Thought for the Day' when it comes on the radio.

The approach of death certainly concentrates the mind.

I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.

It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.

My heart, have you know wisdom thus to despair? My love, my love, why have you left me alone?

we shall never be what we were again'. Old love's refrain.

Can you forget your love for me, Whom now you detest? But that's all one, those times are gone. No doubt 'tis for the best...

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.

Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.

I attended the burial of all my rosy feelings:I performed the rites, simple and decisive.

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.

I've given you my emptiness: it may not be unlike your emptiness: in voyages, there are wide reaches of water with no islands:

The observation of others is coloured by our inability to observe ourselves impartially. We can never be impartial about anything until we can be impartial about our own organism.