My unique path through life has led me, however, to fear known threats but seldom the unknown, while most people fear both.
Be you and only you, which means be you and all the people you have loved...
Marriage is an expression of love and respect and trust and faith in the future, but the union of husband and wife is also an alliance against the challenges and tragedies of life, a promise that with me in your corner, you will never stand alone.
Humor is a petal on the flower of hope, and hope blossoms on the vine of faith. They have faith in each other and faith that life has meaning, and from this faith comes their indefatigable good humor, which is their greatest gift to each other – and to me.
Nothing before its time, son. Everything in its own time, to its own schedule.
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Don’t be negative. Negative thinking disturbs the fabric of the cosmos.
Home was the story of what happened there, not the story of where it happened.
After six years of solitude, sharing a meal and conversation with someone was a pleasure. More than a pleasure, her hospitality and companionship were also affecting to a surprising extent, so that at times I was overcome by emotion so intense, I couldn’t have spoken without revealing how profoundly I was moved.
Sometimes enlightenment descends upon you when you least expect it...
Small-town boy meets big-time evil.
The value of any experience isn’t in its positive or negative effect on his life but in the sheer luminous power of it, the vividness, the ferocity, the amount and degree of pure sensation that it provides. Intensity.
In life, little happens by chance, and most bad hands we’re dealt are the consequence of our actions, which are shaped by our wisdom and our ignorance. In my experience, survival depends on hoping for the best while recognizing that disaster is more likely and that it can’t be averted if it can’t be imagined.
Taking refuge in the hopeless nature of anything was just a form of cowardice.
The less I have, the less I can lose.
Where does fiction end and reality begin?
Although he never speaks of how or what or why, I know that his childhood was difficult, that his parents broke his heart. Books and excess poundage are his insulation against pain.
Life is finding people you love and then losing them, sometimes after sixty years, sometimes after a few months or even a week, all the loss meant to keep you humble and remind you that your life is likewise stamped with an expiration date, so that you’ll use your days to the best of your ability, in the service of what is good.
Every home ceased to be a home sooner or later, but not with its demolition. It survived destruction as long as just one person who had loved it still lived. Home was the story of what happened there, not the story of where it happened.
Even when God is your co-pilot, it pays to pack a parachute.