Quotes About Reflection

by being both here and beyond I am becoming a horizon from "The Man in the Mirror

The Hill I have come this far on my own legs, missing the bus, missing taxis, climbing always. One foot in front of the other, that is the way I do it. It does not bother me, the way the hill goes on. Grass beside the road, a tree rattling its black leaves. So what? The longer I walk, the farther I am from everything. One foot in front of the other. The hours pass. One foot in front of the other. The years pass. The colors of arrival fade. That is the way I do it.

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end

I walk into what light there is — Mark Strand, from "Another Place," Collected Poems (Knopf Doubleday, 2014)

And if it happens that you cannot go on or turn back and you find yourself where you will be at the end, tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs that you love what you are. — Mark Strand, from "Lines for Winter," Selected Poems . (Knopf September 26, 1990)

She stood beside me for years, or was it a moment? I cannot remember. Maybe I loved her, maybe I didn't. There was a house, and then no house. There were trees, but none remain. When no one remembers, what is there? You, whose moments are gone, who drift like smoke in the afterlife, tell me something, tell me anything.

It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.

When we walk in the sun our shadows are like barges of silence.

What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfort Of being strangers, at least to ourselves.

A cloud is never a mirror -Words about clouds are clouds themselves -If snow falls inside a cloud, only the cloud knows -A cloud dreams only of triangles -Clouds are in love with horizons -The cloud that was gone would never come back -Every lake desires a cloud -A cloud is a cathedral without belief -Clouds cannot see what we do under the umbrella -Clouds are thoughts without words

How those fires burned that are no longer, how the weather worsened, how the shadow of the seagull vanished without a trace. Was it the end of a season, the end of a life? Was it so long ago it seems it might never have been? What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? (from "No Words Can Describe It")

Credit and debt keep us fixated on the past and the future.

instead of purifying my character I was multiplying my wants.

I want to invite you to look at all your beliefs deeply and see if any are limiting you in any way

Emotions are like a boomerang.

our job in life is to endure, to be kind, and to constantly put the past behind us and not dwell too much on the future. If you must look back, try to find the beauty and the benefit in every cruelty done to you. If you must think about the future, try to have no expectations about it. Trust in God to guide you through.

Try to be grateful for every setback or tragedy, because by living through them, you become stronger.

When at last he took off his glasses, the sun was setting, casting the lake in coppers and golds. He wiped away tears and put his glasses back on. Then he looked over, gave me a sad, sweet smile, and put his palm across his heart. "Forgive an old man his memories," Pino said. "Some loves never die.

we must give thanks for this day and for every day, no matter how flawed. Bow your heads, give your gratitude to God, and have faith in him, and in a better tomorrow.

in a matter of seconds, his faith in God, in life, in love, and in a better tomorrow drained away to empty.

in life is to endure, to be kind, and to constantly put the past behind us and not dwell too much on the future. If you must look back, try to find the beauty and the benefit in every cruelty done to you.

praying was where you talk to God. And meditation was where you listen.

Forgive an old man his memories," Pino said. "Some loves never die.

Music. Wine. A cigar. The small luxuries of life are how we survive what the mind can't fathom.