As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance … - Alison Hawthorne Deming

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I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself.

Alison Hawthorne Deming

As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.

Becomes, Begins, Death, Deaths, Fall, Thinking

Same Author Quotes

I don't know much about death and the sorriest lesson I've learned is that words, my most trusted guardians against chaos, offer small comfort in the face of anyone's dying.

Comfort, Dying, Lessons, Sorriest, Trusted

I've been accused of darkness by my inner light.

Accused, Darkness, Inner Light, Light

It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost.

Animal, Endangered, Giving, Including, Lost, Voice

There are landscapes and species that are not going to be here a hundred years from now, fifty years from now. One gift we as writers give to the world is to bear witness to these landscapes and species as we have experienced them.

Giving, Landscapes, Witness, World, Writers, Years

There is a difference between our wisdom and nature's simplicity. That reflects the burden of a complex intelligence. A complex intelligence like ours is impotent compared to the intelligence of a monarch butterfly migrating from Canada to Mexico, or the intelligence of hummingbirds that have co-evolved with the flowers all along their migration route. That seems so simple; it just happens, it just unfolds.

Butterfly, Flower, Hummingbirds, Intelligence, Reflects, Simple