Quotes About Reflection

Every day you are closer to your death. You are half-dead already. Where does your identity come from?

Her job was to rest before dying. All she had to do was nothing at all.

She would have uprooted herself to have seen the world with him, and now she was seeing it without him.

She longed to see her sons as they were back then: their legs chubby and white, their mushroom haircuts misshapen because they could never sit still at the barber. She wished she could take back the times she had scolded her children just because she was tired. There were so many errors. If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.

Is it so terrible to be Korean?" "It is terrible to be me.

There wasn't a day when she didn't think of her father or hear his voice in her head.

He had expected to have a long life with her, not a few years. Who would he tell when a customer did something funny? Who would he tell that their son had made him so proud, standing on crutches and shaking the hands of grown-ups and being braver than any other person in the room?

There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet, grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.

Don't be arrogant, because arrogance kills curiosity and passion.

If this is madness," I said to myself, breathing his atmosphere exquisite almost to sanctification, "madness is something very beautiful.

I once heard somebody express surprise that instead of following it onward one should not take a cut across Time to secure a moment which, stretching out in line with oneself, would last indefinitely.

And Mary preserve our mistresses from seeing us as we see ourselves.

Does your mirror Bedevil you?

We rate experiences as good or bad;even when its the latter, we learn from them.Therefore all experiences are good.

Not to be weird, but I still have an ongoing relationship with my mom, even though she passed away, and I've been surprised at how much I've been able to convey to her. Now I sound like a total weirdo, but that's true.

I have such a rich fantasy life, I can't help it. I do make up a lot of romantic stories in my head.

Anyone who's lost someone to cancer will say this, that you have to struggle to try to remember the person before the diagnosis happened, because they really do change - as anyone would change.

Later, when you're grown up, you realize you never really get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and that's it.

The chorus of "Jack and Diane" is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life.

Until I realized: this long expanse of free time to rekindle friendships is not real. We will never come home to each other again and we will never again have each other's undivided attention. That version of our friendship is over forever. And when I remember this, and it usually happens in those awful, quiet evening hours on Sunday nights, after dinner but before bed, I just lie on my sofa and cry for half an hour.

Albums that remind me of my childhood happiness make me incredibly sad now.

Sometimes a story just needs an ending, and I used to not be a creative enough person to think of an ending to a romantic story that isn't a wedding or a death. This story didn't end in fireworks, because the truth is, fireworks are something from my twenties. I could have made fireworks, but I chose to make a nuanced memory of a person who is neither a hero nor a villain in my life. All I had to do now was move on.

I'm a role model now. ... I want to be a better person because I don't want to disappoint those girls. I stop and think about my actions more. I tip great, I try not to swear too much, and I remember to thank people and be grateful. And all that stuff I do to "appear' better has actually made me a better person. I wish I had always acted like I was a little bit famous.

It's sort of my go-to stock image of my childhood, actually. I think it has something to do with knowing I'll never be able to go back to that time that makes me cry every time I listen to it.