Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable – which, I haste to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.
There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.
He will wipe the tears from all faces.′ It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.
You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years.
Then there is the matter of my mother’s abandonment of me. Again, this is the common experience. They walk ahead of us, and walk too fast, and forget us, they are so lost in thoughts of their own, and soon or late they disappear. The only mystery is that we expect it to be otherwise.
Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting... By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.
A narrow pond would form in the orchard, water clear as air covering grass and black leaves and fallen branches, all around it black leaves and drenched grass and fallen branches, and on it, slight as an image in an eye, sky, clouds, trees, our hovering faces and our cold hands.
I am vehemently grateful that, by whatever means, I learnt to assume that loneliness should be in part pleasure, sensitizing and clarifying, and that it is even a truer bond among people than any kind of proximity.
It is better to have nothing, for at last even our bones will fall. It is better to have nothing.
I believe the sin of covetise is that pang of resentment you may feel when even the people you love best have what you want and don’t have.
You never bother me, Glory. It’s remarkable how much you don’t bother me. Almost unprecedented.
It was the seahorses themselves that she wanted to see as soon as she took her eyes away, and that she wanted to see even when she was looking at them.
To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear.
It’s better to have nothing,′ the children were saying.
It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire.
These little towns were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter just such peace.
I mean only respect when I say that your mother has always struck me as someone with whom the Lord might have chosen to spend some part of His mortal time.