Great Throughts Treasury

"You have to find what?s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue."

"You have to start over. That's what they say. But life is not a board game, and losing a loved one is never really starting over. More like continuing without."

"You knew me. You knew that person, but you don't know the person I'm trying to become... You are not your past!"

"You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning . Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five."

"You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent."

"You live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here... Death ends life, not a relationship."

"You marked the minutes, the old man said. But did you use them wisely? To be still? To cherish? To be grateful? To lift and be lifted?"

"You must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."

"You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won't just happen automatically. I knew what he was saying. We all need teachers in our lives."

"You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart."

"You really loved her?' 'I would have given my life.' 'Would you have taken it?' 'No, child,' he said. 'That is not ours to do."

"You see this face, these wrinkles? I earned every one of them"

"You should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to say that we don?t know everything. And since we don?t know everything, we must accept that another person may believe something else."

"You should never take anything for granted."

"You were never alone."

"You were one person, and you changed the world."

"You?re not a wave, you?re a part of the ocean."

"You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems? My problems? Yes.' And you'll give me answers? I'll give you what I can. Don't I always? I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space. It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk. Ah, talk . . . He closes his eyes and smiles. Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen."

"Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down."

"Your father was no longer a young man. he was already in his fifties.' Fifty-six,' Eddie said blankly. Fifty-six,' the old woman repeated. 'His body had been weakened, the ocean had left him vulnerable, pneumonia took hold of him, and in time, he died.' Because of Mickey?' Eddie said. Because of loyalty,' she said. People don?t die because of loyalty.' They don?t?' she smiled. 'Religion? government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death?' Eddie shrugged. Better,' she said, 'To be loyal to one another."

"Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive. He smiled. It helps you listen."

"You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails."

"You're not a wave, you're a part of the ocean."

"You've lived through a lot of wars, I said. Yes. Do they ever make more sense? No."

"Giving makes me feel like living."

"You talk, I'll listen. "