Quotes About Reflection

Failure was the fire in the crucible of greatness. Every time a woman made a mistake, she should just think back, examine it, and figure out how to avoid making that mistake again. Shay wanted to believe that, but her heart wouldn't let her. No. Mistakes burned in her soul, reminders of her failure and the fact that she wasn't the best in the world at something.

That's how we learn, ain't it? Accidents 'n mistakes 'n it's all worth knowledge s'long as we keep from grinding ourselves down in the gutter over it.

The next step after this is applying that state of being—that thin sliver of sliding into place that feels wrong and so right at the same time, that makes you question your sanity—to your green lights. Feel your way through them instead

I hope you live long enough for something else big to shock you and make you question everything like it did me. It's uncomfortable at times to stare into the truth when it goes against what you think you know, but in the end, you'll feel more satisfied.

Or you can choose grace. To let it all go in one fell swoop. There will be no middle ground here." He waved his arm and shook his shaggy head, letting out a tired sigh. "But I will offer this. Instead of wondering what was lost, take a moment and wonder what could be gained. What could still be lost if you don't let go.

Graveyards are needed before churches.

Past a certain point it is not interesting to think about childhood as the central drama and adulthood as its reprise.

I had come to appreciate the reality of solitude and the illusion of community that bars provide.

I began waking up slowly into history, from which we do not emerge as from other nightmares.

A certain kind of hunger. To know what happened and at least ask why. Because the tikkun can't start until everyone asks what happened — not just the Jews but everybody.

Mamma said that when you don't love someone one bit, you have to try to see them like Jesus would. It's a hard thing to do. Even Mamma has to squint sometimes.

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining ... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.

I tell you loneliness is the thing to master. Courage and fear, love, death are only parts of it and can easily be ruled afterwards. If I make myself master my own loneliness there will be peace or safety: and perhaps these are the same.

Life is not long at all, never long enough, but days are very long indeed.

travel is compost for the mind

My kind of loneliness now has no cure, you know; it is something I expect to live with until I die. Friends are heavenly kind, sometimes fun; it would be fatal not to have them. But I by no means need or want daily contact; perhaps it takes as much out of me as it gives, perhaps takes more.

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me.

I had a sudden notion of why history is such a mess: humans do not live long enough. We only learn from experience and have no time to use it in a continuous and sensible way.

But the soul concerns me; and I am beginning to wonder whether it is wise or useful to spend so much time searching for one's own.

I want to read and write and be very quiet.

She tried, leaning back and closing her eyes, to put in order what she had seen, heard, and what she had known before. She wanted to place her knowledge in paragraphs ( a good opening sentence? she thought), so that it would be easy to handle when she came to write it. But it did not fit in paragraphs and she could not see it, plain and informative, colourful but unimpassioned, on a page. There was no beginning, no middle, no end.

I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of a miracle.

'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.