Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.
— Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
Wonder begins with the element of surprise. The now almost obsolete word ‘wonderstruck’ suggests that wonder breaks into consciousness with a dramatic suddenness that produces amazement or astonishment. Because of the suddenness with which it appears, wonder reduces us momentarily to silence. We associate gaping, breathlessness, bewilderment, and even stupor with wonder, because it jolts us out of the world of common sense in which our language is at home. The language and categories we customarily use to deal with experience are inadequate to the encounter, and hence we are initially immobilized and dumbfounded. We are silent before some new dimension of meaning which is being revealed.
— Sam Keen
The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
— Ted Hughes
There is nothing to compare yourself to. You have your own value. That value is not a comparative value or an exchange value, it is more than that.
—
Shunryu Suzuki
Branching Streams Flow in Darkness
I’m a far more flawed human being than you realize. My sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has deeper roots. And that’s why I want you to go on ahead of me if you can. Don’t wait for me. Sleep with other girls if you want to. Don’t let thoughts of me hold you back. Just do what you want to do. Otherwise, I might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing I don’t want to do. I don’t want to interfere with your life. I don’t want to interfere with anybody’s life. Like I said before, I want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. That’s all I want.
— Haruki Murakami, ‘Norwegian Wood’
The past is the one thing we are not prisoners of. We can do with the past exactly what we wish. What we can’t do is to change its consequences.
— John Berger
It’s hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment.
— Jeanette Winterson
Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.
God: I own you like I own the caves.
The Ocean: Not a chance. No comparison.
God: I made you. I could tame you.
The Ocean: At one time, maybe. But not now.
God: I will come to you, freeze you, break you.
The Ocean: I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what’s happened to me.
- Dave Eggers
How We Are Hungry
We are like butterflies
who flutter for a day
and think it is forever.
— Carl Sagan
Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
— Don Miguel Ruiz
A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.
— Haruki Murakami
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
— Susan Ertz
Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in your garage makes you a car.
— G. K. Chesterton
I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.
— Alan Coren
