Quotes About Awareness

Though I couldn't see it, I knew the Atlantic was behind the buildings on the other side of the street. Everything seemed so alien that it was hard to believe I was only a few miles from Manhattan.

I certainly didn't understand something that I learned later from Dr. Kay Jamison, the author of An Unquiet Mind, about her own manic-depression. She has written that it is "a lethal illness, particularly if left untreated, or wrongly treated.

Their bodies lifted up, clean and simple to her in the clear, unconscious awareness of each of their cells' sensing that she would grunt out strong young.

It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.

Handle with care - everything - even the predators.

If we marvel at the artist who has written a great book, we must marvel more at those people whose lives are works of art and who don't even know it, who wouldn't believe it if they were told. However hard work good writing may be, it is easier than good living.

I stood there and watched thirty-five children disappear in almost as many different directions and was suddenly horrified by what I'd done. What if someone got lost or hurt? Suppose they didn't come back on time? What would I do then?

For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.

We've been here all along, the world seemed to say, waiting for you. What took you so long to find us? I

You're different from everyone else. All the rules and emotions and obligations that guide most of us through life—they're invisible to us. They're natural, like breathing. But they're visible to you.

The minute you see yourself you're forced out of your head and into your body, forced to reckon with yourself as a thing that takes up space in the world, that others can see and react to, that has a story with a beginning, middle, and end that intersects with other peoples stories. A mirror gives you perspective.

Like many parents in middle age, he's quick to spot changes in the world, slow to note shifts in his own perspective.

The point of living in the world is just to stay interested

Death, I suspect, will likely be unsatisfying because I will no longer be present to feel the achievement thereof.

There are no great fanfares for the truly great moments of your life. Just dripping taps and the sound of your own footsteps, walking from one room into another

Life is, after all, a sensual experience. Our senses have the power to truly transport us but also to ground us. Make us human.

only way to stimulate the spirit of inquiry is, first to make the person realize that he does not know, and, second, that it is truly possible to know.

She much preferred to be safely on the outside of life, watching, than deeply involved.

slight shifts in imagination can have deeper and more lasting impact on our lives than major efforts at change.

rushing headlong into the next thing, we fail to appreciate the blessing of the only thing we can really claim as ours to own, the present moment.

Where's my clairvoyance when I need it? Hell, where are any of my senses?

We should never, ever believe life - or history holds no surprises for us. That was lies arrogance. And arrogance can blind us to the truth. Which truth? Any truth. All truth. her voice was solemn

He had always thought that death was black nothingness, but he had not counted on being awake for it.

I never again looked at the sky and saw only vastness and beauty. From that afternoon on I saw that death was also and always there.