Quotes About Presence

I broke my days into separate moments," he said. "See, it's true I didn't have any more to look forward to. But on the other hand, there were these individual moments that I could still appreciate. Like drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning. Working on something fine in my workshop. Watching a baseball game on TV.

Last Christmas Daphne hadn't been born yet; nor had Fanny. Now here sat Daphne chewing a wad of blue tissue while Franny stirred her fists through Agatha's jigsaw puzzle. They both seemed so accustomed to being here. And Danny and Lucy had completely vanished . Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.

Ivy! It's a natural disaster! You have to be there!

I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.

Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

The point of going somewhere like the Napo River in Ecuador is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there.

But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.

This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

The silence is not suppression; instead, it is all there is.

Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch the grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

beauty and grace [in nature] are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.

The sight of Ethan - of Scam, since this was a mission - sent a trickle of annoyance down Crash's spine. Not like all the little itches of tech, just the ever-present need to punch him in the face.

But I feel more real when I'm around her. Like I'm not fading.

this is life. Right here in this room, with you, is life.

I wanted to listen to him, but I did not want to answer now. That strange responsibility we feel towards others when they speak, to offer them the solace of any answer. Poor humans! And anyway he had not asked a question. He was merely floating there in the room, insubstantial, a living man in the midst of life, dying imperceptibly on his feet, like all of us.

He didn't ask himself if she was beautiful, because the physical effect of her presence made the question insignificant.

We're not really conscious of what we're doing most of the time.

I came to think of it as a kind of zen practice: the Zen of not fucking up.

I opened my letter to Margaret by describing the scene—I always enjoy receiving a letter when the writer locates himself or herself in a definite place, and I like to know if there is a cup of tea at hand, or how the light is falling in the room or beyond the window. Such descriptions transcend the barriers of time and space and give reader and writer the illusion that they are together.

It doesn't matter if anyone reads it, buys it, sponsors it or shares it. It matters that you show up.