Quotes About Reflection

Be very careful, warns this tale, not to get too obsessed with the repetition of religious ritual just for its own sake.

The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go. With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go. Watch the heat of the day pass into the cool night. Let go. When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.

But thinking about it today, I have to say that it enrages me. Arthur Watson had completely gotten away with his misdeeds and lies. Celia had been banished by Peg, and I had been banished by Edna—but Arthur had been allowed to carry on with his lovely life and his lovely wife, as though nothing had ever happened. The dirty little whores had been disposed of; the man was allowed to remain. Of course, I didn't recognize the hypocrisy back then. But Lord, I recognize it now.

Todos tenemos algo de lo que arrepentirnos y eso es bueno

Sometimes it takes a very long while to figure things out.

It should have been unbearable to face this sorry inventory, yet for some reason it was not.

Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.

Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit

Later in life he reported that he had found his fame boring—not because it was immoral or corrupting, but simply because it was exactly the same thing every day. He was looking for something richer, more textured, more varied. So he dropped out.

She saw that Matavai Bay had become, in the hushed and balmy night, as smooth as a mirror. The entire canopy of stars above her was reflected perfectly in the water, as though there were two heavens now: one above, one below. The silence and purity of this was formidable. The beach felt heavy with presences. Had Ambrose ever seen such a thing while he was here? Two heavens, in one night? Had he ever felt this dread and wonderment, this sense of both loneliness and presence?

Our whole business therefore in this life," wrote Saint Augustine, rather Yogically, "is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.

In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried ... nothing is so warming and companionable.

We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear, he said. Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.

Happy the man who lives long enough to acknowledge his ignorance

this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings.

how much he loved being alone except when he didn't, except when it got to be too much?

Two whole lives, a person might have. Three or four or five. If only. Never before had she felt this fanning out of possibilities; one life had seemed plenty, difficult sometimes, other times fine. Either way, her lot.

To see your mother as a baby, that is what it's like, and therefore heartbreaking and wretched, and therefore also cleansing in some crooked way, the self wiped clean of static, pared down to its essentials, the human core that bore you, which was borne.

THe church is full of flowers-yellow roses, lilies, blue hydrangeas spilling forth-and it is on these that Charlie trains his gaze and looks for his mother, who is nowhere to be found. Not even her ashes are in the church, and no coffin, but this is less hard to comprehend than the fact that she is not herself there, a thin old bird, an egret maybe, standing on one leg, head bobbing, long neck swiveling. Contradicting, adding and subtracting. poking fun. Peering out.

In art it is not often possible to make direct use of your dreams of tomorrow and your excuses for yesterday.

It took a moment to recognize Timothy... her first love. There had been a time when the mere sight of his handsome face had made her catch her breath. It had taken her years to recover from losing Timothy. Now the pain of his loss was muted and somehow apart from her, as if a broken engagement had happened to some other young, naive girl. She looked at him, and all she could think was, Thank Goodness. Thank goodness she's escaped marrying him.

She watched his chest rise and fall and remembered and reflected. All her life things had been taken from her: Apollo, Thomas's affection, Mama and Papa, her home, her future. No one had ever asked her opinion, garnered her thoughts on what she wanted or needed. Things had been done to her, but she'd never had the chance to do things. Like a doll on a shelf, she'd been moved about, manipulated, flung aside.

She glanced again at Caliban as she said, "You and Daffodil were very brave." "And the best part, Mama," Indio said, tugging her hand to get her attention, "the best part is Caliban spoke. Did you hear him? He shouted my name!" "What?" Lily stared at Indio's filthy little face and then back up at Caliban. She absently noted that he had a bleeding scratch on his cheek. That shout right before the accident—had that been him?

TEMPERANCE STARED