Quotes About Reflection

Lying on a pile of pillows and smaller cushions, slurping her coffee and playing with her cigarette smoke, she felt briefly that her thoughts were growing more subtle and expansive.

As Anne watched her, she could not help thinking of the age-old question every woman asks herself at some time or other: do I have to swallow it?

Something had happened and he, like almost everyone else, had got used to the habit of life. Perhaps that's all life was: a habit that resisted the adventure of death.

He had only just made the Elysian deadline; hanging onto the typescript until the last moment in case there was something still to be done; two sentences turned into one, one sentence broken into two, the substitution of a slightly resistant adjective to engender a moment's reflection, in short, the joys of editing, all carried out without forgetting the art that disguises art.

But that's what the English mean, isn't it, when they say, He was very philosophical about it? They mean that someone stopped thinking about something.

Just before the top of the hill she stopped, breathed deeply, and tried to muster her scattered sense of calm, like a bride checking her veil in the last mirror before the aisle.

made him more conscious of how little experience he had of saying what he meant.

Why was he in this state? Or perhaps the question was why had he not always been in this state? Why had he not always found life so disturbing and so poignant?

Most people either felt regret at staying with someone for too long, or regret at losing them too easily. I manage to feel both ways at the same time about the same object.

He had become so caught up in building sentences that he had almost forgotten the barbaric days when thinking was like a splash of color landing on a page.

He wondered if he could ever make his ego light enough to relax in not having to settle the meaning of things. What would that feel like?

What state? A state of philosophical enquiry? I thought you would approve.

Sometimes, when he was alone, he sat in the Doge's chair, as it was always called, leaning forward on the edge of the seat, his right hand clasping one of the intricately carved arms, striking a pose he remembered from the Illustrated History of England he had been given at prep school. The picture portrayed Henry V's superb anger when he was sent a present of tennis balls by the insolent King of France.

As he poured himself a drink, David thought about his dead father-in-law, Dudley Craig, a charming, drunken Scotsman who had been dismissed by Eleanor's mother, Mary, when he became too expensive to keep.

Life imitating bad literary criticism. Dis/inte/gration.

One seldom knows whether perseverance is noble or stupid until it's too late.

I know' said Patrick. 'It was a terrible shock to me when I realized I was getting too old to die young anymore.

The more you read Scripture, the more you actually talk to God rather than think about fear.

No one cares about their reputation or their bank account when they find themselves in the shadow of death.

Whatever our monument might be, we want it to be public, even if the public is one friend.

Anger looks down from the judge's perch; wisdom comes down from those heights and looks up from below. Humility captures it.

When in doubt, look at the Lord. Lift up your eyes (Numbers 21:4–9). That will be something it will take all your life to master, but what better time to start than now? Still, you can't imagine being an invited worshiper of God.

The fastest way to bring a wrecking ball to our skewed interpretations is through confession.

If the potential presence/arrival of another person can reveal the ungodliness in our behavior, how much more the coming of Christ himself?