Quotes About Awareness

Now, there are a very large number of bodily movements, having their source in our nervous system, that do not possess the character of conscious actions.

I know a lot about systemic lupus erythematosus because I have it, too. I was diagnosed through the NHS when I first moved to England in 2008 following months of serious illness.

The reality is we have allowed systemic racism to continue through all these years.

Things I've been talking about for a long time as systemic problems, the American public has also begun to see something needs to be done down here.

There is no question that the Green Party has work to do in addressing racism, anti-Semitism, systemic discrimination in all its forms.

Canada is so far behind on issues related to systemic racism.

Because the writer has done her job, the world of the book I am reading has become, for the moment at least, more real than the world at my elbow. Books this good should carry a warning: Your quiche might burn, your child might escape his playpen, the morning glory vine might strangle your roses, and you'll never know.

Life, basically, is a nightmare until you learn to control the dream.

In the words of the Joni Mitchell song, we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.

to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender...

Boredom is what happens to people who have no control over their minds.

And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love.

It's crazy the things a person can pretend not to notice.

Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other.

Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore. She doesn't mean that it's a real veil. And it isn't about magic, or some idea that maybe God is looking right at you, or an angel is sitting next to you, or anything like that. Mom doesn't think in those ways. It's just her way of saying that most of the time, people get distracted by little stuff and ignore the big stuff.

But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore.

Life was anything but fast, in your opinion. If it went any more slowly, time would probably start to run backward.

Mom's Rules for Life in New York City 1. Always have your key out before you reach the front door. 2. If a stranger is hanging out in front of the building, don't ever go in - just keep walking around the block until he's gone. 3. Look ahead. If there's someone acting strange down the block, looking drunk or dangerous, cross to the other side of the street, but don't be obvious about it. Make it look like you were planning to cross the street all along. 4. Never show your money on the street.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

Miriam says that sometimes, when we don't want to 'look hard at our behavior,' we look hard at everything else instead...

She should have known better than to entertain such thoughts, she told herself later. She knew how powerful telepathy could be, conjuring or connecting with someone else's thought waves. It might not be scientific, but she, like most people, knew how real it was, from direct experience. When her landline rang, at ten minutes to nine, some part of her know instantly who it wa.

There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.

I realized that if I had said to them, "You had that young man turned out of the carriage because he had a second-class ticket," they would have nodded and said, "Yes," and if I had gone on and said, "But you yourselves have only second-class tickets," they would not have seen that the second statement had any bearing on the first; and I cannot picture to myself the mental life of people who cannot perceive that connexion.