Great Throughts Treasury

"What would happen if you're good as dead"

"What you have done to this point cannot be undone. What you do next ? He hesitated. What? Victor said. What? It is still unwritten."

"What's wrong with being number 2?"

"When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this? He made a fist. Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say the whole world is mine. But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson. What lesson? I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. We can take nothing with us."

"When a lost loved one appears before you, it's your brain that fights it, not your heart."

"When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever."

"When he died, he took part of me with him . I was stuck after that."

"When he smiles it's as if you'd just told him the first joke on earth."

"When hope is gone, time is punishment."

"When lightning strikes after you are gone, or an airplane in the state you could have crashes. When your partner sick and you do not work. We believe that these things are random, but there is a balance in everything. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole."

"When she says, 'How can you ask if I love you? Look at all I've done with you. What else would you call it?' That kind of love-the kind you realize you already have by the life you've created together-that's the kind that lasts."

"When we are most alone is when we embrace another?s loneliness."

"When you are measuring life, you are not living it."

"When you come to the end, that?s where God begins."

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

"When you look into your mother?s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth."

"When you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have."

"When your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid."

"When you're an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished."

"When you're in bed, you're dead."

"When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love."

"Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it?s a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They?re going to read one chapter and say, ?I can?t wait to get back to the other guy.?"

"Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?"

"Why did you measure the days and nights? To know. Sitting high above the city, Father Time realized that knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing."

"Why do you want to die?' I shivered. For a second I couldn't breathe. 'You knew...?' She gave a sad smile. 'I'm your mother."

"With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can?t appreciate what we have."

"With his power over time, Dor could have taken anything he desired from this new world. But a man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying."

"With Marguerite, he wanted only time?more and more time?and he was granted it, night-times and day-times and night-times again."

"With no loss or sacrifice, we can't appreciate what we have."

"Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creatures endures. A fear of time running out."

"You are not your past."

"You can a mam's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both. So you cling to the one you think you might lose."

"You can feel the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-- no matter how smart or accomplished--they cry, they yearn, they hurt. But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love and a peaceful heart."

"You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute."

"You can know the whole world and still feel lost in it."

"You can touch everything and be connected to nothing."

"You can?t get stuck on what should have happened. That doesn?t help you."

"You can?t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness."

"You cannot talk when you first arrive. It helps you to listen."

"You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened."

"You can't lose your mother, Charley."

"You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship"

"You count the hours you could have spent with your mother. It's a lifetime in itself."

"You didn?t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It?s supposed to be. It?s not something to regret. It?s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father. That?s the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you?re not really losing it. You?re just passing it on to someone else."

"You died. ... And I lost everything... Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance it. .. Life has to end... love doesn't."

"You don't know how to live until you learn how to die."

"You don't miss things. You miss people."

"You had many more years, he said. I didn?t want them. But they wanted you. Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future. What?s that? Hope."

"You have one family. For good or bad. You have one family. You can't trade them in. You can't lie to them. Sticking to your family is what makes it a family."

"You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn?t work, don?t buy it."