We cannot be taught wisdom, we have to discover it for ourselves by a journey which no one can undertake for us, an effort which no one can spare us.
Overcoming childhood could be understood as an attempt to correct the false stories of others.
The constant calls of the screens, some accompanied by the impatient pulsing of a cursor, suggest with what ease our seemingly entrenched lives might be altered were we simply to walk down a corridor and onto a craft that in a few hours would land us in a place of which we had no memories and where no one knew our name.
Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things.
Art builds up self-knowledge, and is an excellent way of communicating the resulting fruit to other people.
Our mortality does not call for panic, but for a sense of awe.
An important first step in overcoming defensiveness around art is to become more open about the strangeness that we feel in certain contexts.
It is when we find points of connection to the foreign that we are able to grow.
Art can do the opposite of glamourizing the unattainable; it can reawaken us to the genuine merit of life as we’re forced to lead it.
Yet we promise not to look around, either, for we accept that there cannot be better options out there. Everyone is always impossible. We are a demented species.
There may be no better way to clear the diary of engagements than to wonder who among our acquaintances would make the trip to the hospital bed.
With perspective in mind, we soon realize that – contrary to what the news suggests – hardly anything is totally novel, few things are truly amazing and very little is absolutely terrible.
We need panels of gold and lapis, windows of coloured glass and gardens of immaculately raked gravel in order to stay true to the sincerest parts of ourselves.
Two people who are surprised by a lion in a jungle clearing will – unless one of them is eaten – be effectively bonded by what they have seen.
The fear of forgetting anything precious can trigger in us the wish to raise a structure, like a paperweight to hold down our memories.
Being alone spares you from constant reminders of how difficult and strange you are. No one is there to hold a mirror up – record your antics and constantly make you accountable for them. If you’re lucky, you will be able to tolerate and even like yourself.
The child teaches the adult something else about love: that genuine love should involve a constant attempt to interpret with maximal generosity what might be going on, at any time, beneath the surface of difficult and unappealing behavior.
Our designs go wrong because our feelings of contentment are woven from fine and unexpected filaments.
We know that, when teaching students, only the utmost care and patience will ever work: we must never raise our voices, we have to use extraordinary tact, we must leave plenty of time for every lesson to sink in, and we need to ensure at least ten compliments for every one delicately inserted negative remark. Above all, we must remain calm.
There is no such thing as a hurt that is too small to matter when emotional closeness is at stake.