Quotes About Reflection

You won't like hearing this, but sometimes you can't fix what you broke. Sometimes you just have to live with it.

The beauty of the place moved me; I loved how the clean air felt in my lungs, how far I was from everything I had ever known. People I'd hurt, people I'd failed, people who thought me a monster. Here there was no monster greater than the ragged mountains.

For a moment Tess imagined she didn't exist. It was surprisingly soothing.

I'd had more than my share of beautiful today. Tomorrow I'd give some back, restore and replenish the world.

There's a room in my heart full of unpaid bills. We all have one. It's useful to go in occasionally and open a few.

I did not understand that I carried loneliness before me on a plate, and that music would be the light illuminating me from behind.

What's done cannot be undone.

Experiencing nothingness had left her feeling unexpectedly full.

Once you glimpsed the truth about yourself, your understanding was complete and you could finally be at piece.

She should hold on to the memories she didn't want to remember. And then, maybe, she could finally let them go.

When the rest of the mind has fled, sometimes there's music left.

Tess had thought her grandmother, somewhat poetically, as having come unbuttoned from time.

He steadied himself with one great hand against the city wall. He had told me he'd never stop growing. He'd meant it literally. What had I been addressing all these years? His finger?

I smiled into the darkness. There was nothing "just" about metaphors, I was beginning to think; they followed me everywhere, illuminating and failing and illuminating again.

Tess had been unaware of leaving anything behind, but to hear Jacomo tell it, he'd played a long, slow game of connect-the-dots, and each dot had been a kindness, farm chores, laughter, a story told. She'd passed through the world, and the world had remembered.

Since we're being literal now, have you felt clear and sensible at other times during your travels?' The question startled Tess into thinking. 'While turning hay. Swimming in the river, crawling through caves… once I was lying under a cattle guard, eating bread, and the sky was blue and there was a bee—' She cut off, embarrassed. It was hard to explain about the bee.

My companions ate the bear. I found I had no appetite.

Some sober part of my brain seemed to observe everything I did, clucking disdainfully, informing me that ought to be embarrassed, yet making no move

That's the secret to performance: conviction. The right note played tentatively still misses its mark, but play boldly and no one will question you. If one believes there is truth in art—and I do—then it's troubling how similar the skill of performing is to lying. Maybe lying is itself a kind of art. I think about that more than I should.

Enough mind chatter. I imagined every thought encapsulated in a bubble; I exhaled them into the world. Gradually the noise ceased, and my mind was dark and still.

Do not bring violence to the sword. Do not bring heartbreak or anger or passion. You hold in your hand the steel of rationality.

You, too, did what was easiest. Don't let that be all you do.

Dying took commitment. It was easier to go on living incompetently. What if she put off deciding until tomorrow? She needed time to get the nerve up and work out a foolproof, painless way to do it. Until then, she'd walk on - badly.

Sometimes going back to the beginning is the only way.