[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.
Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.
Animals used to provide a lowlife way to kill and get away with it, as they do still, but, more intriguingly, for some people they are an aperture through which wounds drain. The scapegoat of olden times, driven off for the bystanders sins, has become a tender thing, a running injury. There, running away is me: hurt it and you are hurting me.
If two people are in love they can sleep on the blade of a knife.
Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn't brotherly -- who lived mostly under his parents' roof. . . who advocated one day's work and six days "off" as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown. . . is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.
Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit.
Trust is as slippery as a basket of eels sometimes.
Feminist,” he said, clearly amused. “Next you’ll be telling us you hate men. ” She gave him a blank look. “I only hate stupid men who don’t actually understand what ‘feminist’ means. ” He laughed. “You run into a lot of men like that?” “All the time. ” “Really?” “Even as we speak, Nick. ” “Oh no she didn’t,” said Peter. I groaned.
She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.