Living And Dying Quotes

Pastor Smith did not have the religious constitution needed to provide salvation for any of us who'd had a hand in this tragic event. We had put on the armour of God, and there was no undoing what we had done. My faith, my belief in myself as a good citizen, everything I had thought was truth was scattered to the wind, and no one on this earth could put that to rights. Things weren't as simple as living and dying. I understood that now. ~ Cheryl R Cowtan

We must eschew anything trivial. We must embrace all that is frivolous ... Trivial things take up all your time and dull your senses, whereas frivolity is meaningful, profound, worth living and dying for ... If we devote our lives to frivolity, the world will be a far, far better place. Humanity will be better able to fulfill its primary goal, that of having a good time. ~ Cynthia Heimel

Not a breath, not a sound - except at intervals the muffled crackling of stones that the cold was reducing to sand - disturbed the solitude and silence surrounding Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that the sky above her was moving in a sort of slow gyration. In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from contemplating those drifting flares. She was turning with them, and the apparently stationary progress little by little identified her with the core of her being, where cold and desire were now vying with each other. Before her the stars were falling one by one and being snuffed out among the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. Breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight of others, the craziness or stuffiness of life, the long anguish of living and dying. After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing from fear, she had come to a stop at last. At the same time, she seemed to recover her roots and the sap again rose in her body, which had ceased trembling. Her whole belly pressed against the parapet as she strained towards the moving sky; she was merely waiting for her fluttering heart to calm down and establish silence within her. The last stars of the constellations dropped their clusters a little lower on the desert horizon and became s ~ Albert Camus

Help, Lord, will suit us living and dying, suffering or labouring, rejoicing or sorrowing. In Him our help is found, let us not be slack to cry to Him. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It matters not how we were brought up. What determines our way of acting is the manner in which we administrate our will. A man is the sum of all his wishes, which determine his way of living and dying. ~ Paulo Coelho

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little. ~ Henry David Thoreau

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying. ~ Morris West

Wake up, folks, wake up! As intimidated as you are by the fear of going against the stream and looking racist (a grossly erroneous word, by the way, because the problem has nothing to do with a race: it has to do with a religion) you don't understand or don't want to understand that a Reverse Crusade is on the march. As blinded as you are by the myopia and the stupidity of the Politically Correct, you don't realize or don't want to realize that a war of religion is being carried out. A war they call Jihad. … A war which is conducted to destroy our civilization, our ways of living and dying, or praying or not praying, of eating and drinking and dressing and studying and enjoying Life. ~ Oriana Fallaci

Returning from the wilderness a man becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forbears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy. ~ Wendell Berry

I chose to be a photographer twenty-two years ago, but I don't know that I'd make that choice again. Back in the early eighties, I still thought I was doing okay, trying to order and shape the world with my camera. Now that I know a bit more about living and dying, about our planet and its complex problems, I'm a lot less comfortable with my images of people. Still, I haven't a clue what else to do. ~ Eugene Richards

From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value. ~ Haruki Murakami

Every year white people add 100 years to how long ago slavery was. I've heard educated white people say, 'slavery was 400 years ago.' No it very wasn't. It was 140 years ago ... that's two 70-year-old ladies living and dying back to back. That's how recently you could buy a guy. ~ Louis C.K.

I needed, I decided, to really know her, because I needed more to remember. Before I could begin the shameful process of forgetting the how and the why of her living and dying, I needed to learn it: How. Why. When. Where. What. ~ John Green

The assignment of meanings [in music] is a shifting, kaleidoscopic play, probably below the threshold of consciousness, certainly outside the pale of discursive thinking. The imagination that responds to music is personal and associative and logical, tinged with affect, tinged with bodily rhythm, tinged with dream, but concerned with a wealth of formulations for its wealth of wordless knowledge, its whole knowledge of emotional and organic experience, of vital impulse, balance, conflict, the ways of living and dying and feeling. ~ Susanne K. Langer

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying! ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Perhaps not Truths, but stories. We would have ordinary truths and guidance about living and dying, and they would emanate not from some absolute authority or formula but from authority of experience and shared understandings, even negotiated understandings, and from the meanings and wisdom that our discoveries contribute to our shared lives. ~ Diane P. Freedman

Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity - which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem. ~ Eckhart Tolle

As a living creature I am part of two kinds of forces- growth and decay, sprouting and withering, living and dying- and at any given moment of our lives, each one of us is actively located somewhere along a continuum between these two forces. ~ Audre Lorde

Not that long ago I wrote in a poem that 'life is so filled with meaning, there is no reason to try to reduce it'. That is how I feel and have felt like for years. Some sense of meaninglessness can come from an attack from others, at times subconscious, slowly but surely eroding one's self-respect and therefore sense of self, on all the meanings, infinite as they are, that are already right there. You can even be "raised" to do this self-destructive work yourself. The so called absurdity of life is a construction that creates a template for meaninglessness in itself. Humans revolting in this way against self-made systems. Perhaps to remove some responsibility of being human, because it is, wrongly, seen as a burden. What is truly a burden is to feel as if nothing in life is important. It is also the easiest thing to do. If you don't find meaning in for instance seeing a black squirrel running up the trunk of a tree, you probably won't find any meaning in travelling to the end of the world. It is a kind of explanatory greed this "search for meaning" that can literally destroy a world, and it is the equivalent of replacing the deepest of life's mysteries with a nice looking garage. To numb before being looked at and experienced as a kind of totally lost "translation" is how the written language can be used at its worst. Meaning is already everywhere, expressing, unfolding itself, living and dying, changing and breathing. The noise distracting from that is what is meaningless bu ~ Rune Kjær Rasmussen

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil
only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value."
Nimit in "Thailand ~ Haruki Murakami

Why, the only reason for religion is that it can make you, keep you safe. If religion weren't true, then there would be no salvation, no comfort for being alive and alone, there would be nothing but living and dying - no, that cannot be so ... of course religion is true and will save me ... ~ Marghanita Laski

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations? ~ Etty Hillesum

The truth is that each of us fall short of loving unconditionally. We don't love others the way God loves us. Yet Jesus extended perfect love by living and dying for all of our sins. In spite of our failures, weaknesses, and selfishness, He sacrificed His own life so we could have eternal life. ~ Dana Arcuri

Before her the stars were falling one by one and being snuffed out among the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. Breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight of others, the craziness or stuffiness of life, the long anguish of living and dying. After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing from fear, she had come to a stop at last. ~ Albert Camus

Listen to me, maggots. Listen for your lives, for that's what it could mean some day. You never see all that you see. One of the things they send you to me for is to show you what you don't see in what you see
what you don't see when you're scared, or fighting or running or fucking. No man sees al that he sees, but before you're gunslinger
those of you who don't go west, that is,
you'll see more in one single glance than some men see in a lifetime. And some of what you don't see in that glance you'll see afterwards, in the eye of your memory
if you live long enough to remember, that is. Because the difference between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between the living and dying. ~ Stephen King

A strong life force can be seen in physical vitality, courage, competent judgment, self-mastery, sexual vigor, and the realization of each person's unique talents and purpose in life. To maintain a powerful life force, forget yourself, forget about living and dying, and bring your full attention into this moment. ~ H.E. Davey

When we see the wholeness of being born, living, and dying, there is a joy in living and a grace in dying. ~ Vimala Thakar

The times when you are suffering can be those when you are most open, and where you are extremely vulnerable can be where you greatest strength really lies.
Say to yourself: 'I am not going to run away from this suffering. I want to use it in the best and richest way I can, so that I can become more compassionate and more helpful to others.'
Suffering, after all, can teach us about compassion. If you suffer you will know how it is when others suffer. And if you are in a position to help others, it is through your suffering that you will find the understanding and compassion to do so. ~ Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying

There was real beauty to the old idea of living and dying where you were born. ~ Annie Dillard

College students' bizarre actions are incomprehensible until scrutinized under the lens that they are simply defying their mortality. A person learns how to live by contemplating death, because when a person faces death, it strips everything superfluous away, revealing the sterling qualities of life. University students newly freed from parental restraints desire to ascertain the essence of their life, but they lack the maturity and life experiences meaningfully to contemplate the weighty subjects of life and death. Realizing their immaturity and resultant angst, collegiate students act recklessly in order to loudly proclaim that they do not care if fate demands that they die will, when in fact they are terrified of both living and dying. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

A person cannot exert absolute control over a capricious environment. A wise person concentrates on serenely adjusting to variable permutations in the environs. A personal journey is less anxious if a person resolves to serve as a conscious witness to the natural world and the unfolding lives of family and friends. It is emotionally stabilizing when we no longer delude ourselves with grand fantasies about living and dying, experience life for what it is and stop wishing for a different existence, an altered universe. Nothing good comes from resisting reality. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

At my age, and in my circumstances, what sinister object, or personal emolument had I to seek after, in this life? The growing infirmities of age and the increasing love of retirement, daily confirm my decided predilection for domestic life: and the great Searcher of human hearts is my witness, that I have no wish, which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm. ~ George Washington

Breath is the bridge,
Between living and dying;
Breath is the licence
For joyous living; ~ Banani Ray

I was living and dying in all the fibers of what is chewed and digested and in all the fibers that absorb the sun, consuming and digesting. Under the thatched arbor of a restaurant on a river-bank, where Olivia had waited for me, our teeth began to move slowly, with equal rhythm, and our eyes stared into each other's with the intensity of serpents' - serpents concentrated in the ecstasy of swallowing each other in turn, as we were aware, in our turn, of being swallowed by the serpent that digests us all, assimilated ceaselessly in the process of ingestion and digestion, in the universal cannibalism that leaves its imprint on every amorous relationship and erases the lines between our bodies and sopa de frijoles, huachinango a la vera cru-zana, and enchiladas. ~ Italo Calvino

Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment. It forces you to pay attention, because if you don't, you won't succeed, which is minor - or you may get hurt, which is major. Instead of years of meditation, you have this activity that forces you to relax and monitor your breathing and tread that line between living and dying. When you climb, you always are confronted with the edge. Hey, if it was just like climbing a ladder, we all would have quit a long time ago. ~ Duncan Ferguson

As I stand behind him, it occurs to me just how much trust we put in other people. Complete strangers, friends. Everybody. Dalton's just sitting there, relaxed, trusting that I'm not going to lose my temper and stab him in the back of the neck with a fork. Every time we get into a car, we trust everybody else on the road. Every time we walk on the sidewalk, we put our lives in other people's hands. We'd never even leave the house if we actually thought about how little control we have over living and dying. ~ Coert Voorhees

Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sang; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead: for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands unto God. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

No breath, no sound, except at times the muffled cracking of stones being reduced to sand and cold, came to disturb the solitude that surrounded Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that a king of slow gyration was sweeping the sky above her. In the depths of the dry, cold night thousands of stars were formed unceasingly and their sparkling icicles, no sooner detached, began to slip imperceptibly towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from the contemplation of these shifting fires. She turned with them, and the same stationary progression reunited her little by little with her deepest being, where cold and desire now collided. Before her, the stars were falling one by one, then extinguishing themselves in the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living and dying. ~ Albert Camus

Taking a walk isn't really taking a walk, taking a shower isn't really taking a shower, living isn't living, and dying isn't dying. It only appears to be. ~ Frederick Lenz

Music has the ability to express in the upbeat every brilliant aspect of existence, while on the downbeat convey the anguish that a human being experiences when apprehending the fleeting nature of time, and the mysterious torture of living and dying. Music stands alone in its ability to communicate the symbols and phases of life, both being and nonbeing. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Both Lear and Washington held fast to paternalistic assumptions about African slavery, believing that enslaved men and women were better off with a generous owner than emancipated and living independent lives. Decades later, Southerners would justify the institution of slavery with descriptions of the supposed benefits that came with enslavement. According to many Southerners, slaves were better cared for, better fed, sheltered, and treated almost as though they were members of the family. Northern emancipation left thousands of ex-slaves without assistance, and Southerners charged that free blacks were living and dying in the cold alleyways of the urban North. Many believed Northern freedom to be a far less humane existence, one that left black men and women to die in the streets from exposure and starvation. But ~ Erica Armstrong Dunbar

It's not easy-living in a void, living and dying inside your head ... wanting what you want so much that you'd give everything else to get it- but the time still passes, the days go on ... and as long as there's still a tomorrow, there's always a chance. ~ Kevin Brooks

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying. ~ Thomas C. Foster

But to Ezail, gifted with acceptance, it was only another facet of the riotous marvel of the earth. For all was marvelous there, was and is still, but humanity becomes inured to repetitive amazements - that the sun may rise, that a tiny seed may become a tree or a man, that life, coming from nowhere, sets us to moving like clockwork, and going out again leaves us to sleep. Or else, as then, takes us away with it, who knows? But we are used to it all, dawn and growth, living and dying. It takes a dragon on houseroof to wake us up now - and then, too. But to Ezail, all was wonder and no single item more than another: Dawns and dragons were one. ~ Tanith Lee

at man's height the mouth utters its cries, tosses forth its oracles, gives vent to its puns. To allow words to come to life, bare themselves, and show us by chance, for the space of a lightning bolt bony with dice, a few of our reasons for living and dying ~ Michel Leiris

Love as acme of living and dying. ~ Aporva Kala

I have a list in my head and every year I add more names to it. My list isn't special. Other men have longer ones. But most men don't have a list like mine at all because they live a life insulated from living and dying. Their acts of courage consist of getting out of bed in the morning, disagreeing with their boss, or using public transportation in the inner city. Perhaps they tempt the unknown by eating in a Vietnamese restaurant or they travel outside their native country. They have nothing to do with me except to provide contrast. ~ Mark Twight

But what's braver?' Emmanuel said. 'Naming the bigots and possibly being killed for it? Or living in silence in order to protect yourself and those you love?'
I think bravery had more to do with making the choice and less to do with the choice it self. In that situation, bravery was both living and dying. ~ Janelle Gray

His lips against mine feel like everything. Like living and dying and being reborn, all at the same time. ~ Colleen Hoover

Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil. ~ Marcus Aurelius

There's difference between being dead and dying. We're all dying. Some of us die for ninety years, and some of us die for nineteen. But each morning everyone on this planet wakes up one day closer to their death. Everyone. So living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it. ~ Robyn Schneider

He was too old to believe in magic, but he needed to believe that there was something more to the world than living and dying. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Imagine the terrestrial timespan as an outstretched arm: a single swipe of an emery-board, across the nail of the third finger, erases human history. We haven't been around for very long. And we've turned the earth's hair white. Sh e seemed to have eternal youth but now she's ageing awful fast, like an addict, like a waxless candle. Jesus, have you seen her recently? we used to live and die without any sense of the planet getting older, of mother earth getting older, living and dying. We used to live outside history. But now we're all coterminous. We're inside history now all right, on its leading edge, with the wind ripping past our ears. Hard to love, when you're bracing yourself for impact. And maybe love can't bear it either, and flees all planets when they reach this condition, when they get to the end of their twentieth centuries. ~ Martin Amis

Gain or loss. Living and dying. I have told you, Cyrain, they cannot be separated. ~ George R R Martin

I see life as a shared gift, received from others and passed on to others, living and dying as one process, in which lies both our suffering and our reward. Without mortality to purchase it, how can we have the consciousness of eternity? I think the price is worth paying. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The black hole of the galaxy swallows the boiling energy of human fury. Soon my waning fume will be obscured forevermore, all insignia of my ionized essence tucked into the anonymous pleat of the universe's billowing skirt. Until the coarse earth's rank mustiness calls for me, can I take comfort living purposefully in the rhythms of an ordinarily life? Can I unabashedly absorb the scintillating jewels in the daily milieu? Can I savor an array of pleasantries with my tongue, ears, nose, eyes, lips, and fingertips? Can I take solace in the tenderness of the nights by singing out songs of love and heartache? Can I devote the dazzle of daylight and the vastness of the night's starriness to investigate life, make a concerted effort to reduce imbedded ignorance, and penetrate layers of obdurate obliviousness? Can I conduct a rigorous search for wisdom irrespective of wherever this journey takes me? Can I make use of the burly pack of prior personal experiences to increase self-awareness? Can I aspire to go forward in good spirits and cheerfully accept all challenges as they come? Can I skim along the delicate surface of life with a light heart until greeting an endless sleep with a begrudging grin in the coolness of the ebbing light? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Values are sometimes worth living and dying for, and are certainly worth dating and breaking up over. ~ Henry Cloud

I want to be a poet, from head to toe, living and dying by poetry. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

Music, in its higher state, for me, is worth living and dying for. It's worth traipsing around the globe, it's worth the accolades and the other side of the accolades ... I always have sung to the angels and the higher parts of people's souls. ~ Cyndi Lauper

Anything which is just born, which has just come into existence, has no past behind it. Birth, in other words, is the condition of having no past. And likewise, anything which now dies, which has just ceased to be, has no future left in front of it. Death is the condition of having no future. But we have already seen that this present moment has both no past and no future simultaneously. That is, birth and death are one in this present moment. This moment is just now being born - you can never find a past to this present moment, you can never find something before it. Yet also, this moment is just now dying - you can never find a future to this moment, never find something after it. This present, then, is a coincidence of opposites, a unity of birth and death, being and non-being, living and dying. As Ippen put it, Every moment is the last moment and every moment is a rebirth. ~ Ken Wilber

If you go to anybody and ask them, what is your dream life? They would say I want to sit by the TV all day. I want to play with my friends all day and they think that is the best way to spend their lives. They do not know that what they have just listed is not living life but wasting life. ~ Sunday Adelaja

As a Talmudic saying goes, over every blade of grass an angel whispers, "Grow, grow!" Living organisms and living faiths must grow, or die! ~ Bruce Epperly

The Bible is not an owner's manual containing complete do-it-yourself instructions on how to make the machine of life in relationship to God hum well. No, it is a dramatic script capturing the journeys of a number of faith communities and God-followers throughout the last several thousand years who - based on their knowledge of God, the questions they were grappling with, and the social context in which they lived - improvised on living the abundant life of God. ~ Ron Martoia

The Zankli Sacred Prayer: Oh God, I bring before you your children you have gifted with the light. Bring unto them what is yours to give, your to provide, and yours to understand. Bless them with the joy of goodness, and deliver unto them longevity, wisdom and foresight. ~ M.J. Duff

This book is a work of fiction that was given to a pirate after it was retrieved from the future by exotically beautiful Eastern European girls. Then diabolical Eastern European scientists worked tirelessly to ensure that every name, character, place, and incident in the world which, even remotely, resembled one within the book was "erased." (How? Ninjas.) If any similarity still exists, it's purely accidental (and suggests you live in an alternate dimension). Any lingering resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental and highly unlikely. ~ James Marshall

...and gentle happy and peaceful, tasting the mean goodness of their living like the last of their suppers in their mouths. ~ James Agee

Living each day as if it were your last doesn't mean your last day of retirement on a remote island. It means to live fully, authentically and spontaneously with nothing being held back. ~ Jack Canfield

Don't limit yourself by trying to do life alone. God gave you His Spirit to dwell within so that you can get through each day and accomplish what He has called you to do in life. He didn't give you His Spirit to simply reside within you, but to be this "incredible greatness" that will help you to rise above and press onward to finish the race. ~ Tania Goody

We have lost the art of living, and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behavior, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead. ~ D.H. Lawrence

He cannot recall just when that initial feeling of oneness faded, subordinated to the everyday activities of daily living. He is disappointed to realize he can no longer expect to find her up and awaiting his return. Discard 2 ~ Lois Charles

And I knew then
that I would have to live,
and go on living: what sorrow it was;
and still what sorrow ignites
but does not consume
my heart. ~ Jane Kenyon

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. We have an obligation to use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time. ~ Neil Gaiman

Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.

"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."

Fejzic, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.

"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzic in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia."

The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzic.

The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs t ~ Chris Hedges

Readiness for dying arrives by attending the smallest moment and finding the eternal inside of it. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

When the whispers of fear and doubt start screaming inside of you, turn up the volume of your courage by focusing on your faith, energizing through example, living to learn, and learning to love and be loved better. ~ Connie Kerbs

That's how lonely and sad I was. Dying is not that hard. Lime the air being sucked slowly out of a room, the will to live was slowly seeping out of me. When you feel like rhat, dying doesn't seem like such a big deal. ~ Haruki Murakami

It hardens you, living in that place. It holds up a mirror and shows you the very worst parts of humanity. It changes people. ~ Amy Ewing

No one wants to die or even plans to die, at least not when you are young and living life on top of everything, stepping on gold, running the miles with hot chicks on tow, but even if I wasn't a rock star, and just a normal civilian, I still wouldn't plan to die young. Death is so boring. ~ Sofea Shah

It's not any easier. We can't choose who we fall in love with. Besides, there's nothing abnormal about two guys being together. Nature made you the way you are and me the way I am. We're already living normal lives. ~ Jay Bell

Humanity will continue, but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human. We are living in the most important era of the Mayan calendars and prophecies. All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions are converging now. There is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action. ~ Carlos Barrios

There may be a parallel between woodcuts and radio; radio plays are a living art form everywhere except the USA. ~ Neil Gaiman

I become more and more inclined to sink the minister in the man, and abandon my present calling in toto as a profession ... to create a living religion in landscape painting. ~ Christopher Pearse Cranch

Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice AND the reward. ~ Epictetus

Surfing is kind of a good metaphor for the rest of life.
The extremely good stuff - chocolate and great sex and weddings and hilarious jokes - fills a minute portion of an adult lifespan.
The rest of life is the paddling: work, paying bills, flossing, getting sick, dying. ~ Jaimal Yogis

There is one only living and true God, without body, parts, or passions; consisting of three persons - the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

It is painful to the human mind to be compelled to admit, that such wonderful inconsistencies of language or ideas, have ever found place in any human creed. Yet, so it is. ~ Parley P. Pratt

THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP
Epilogue
Part II

The fool who does not hear,
He can do nothing at all;
He sees knowledge in ignorance,
Usefulness in harmfulness.
He does all that one detests
And is blamed for it each day;
He lives on that by which one dies.
His food is distortion of speech.
His sort is known to the officials,
Who say: "A living death each day."
One passes over his doings,
Because of his many daily troubles.

A son who hears is a follower of Horus,
It goes well with him when he has heard.
When he is old has reached veneration.
He will speak likewise to his children,
Renewing the teaching of his father.
Every man teaches as he acts,
He will speak to the children,
So that they will speak to their children:
Set an example, don't give offense,
If justice stands firm your children will live.

As to the first who gets into trouble,
When they see (it) people will say:
"That is just like him."
And will say to what they hear:
"That's just like him too."

To see everyone is to satisfy the many,
Riches are useless without them.
Don't take a word and then bring it back,
Don't put one thing in place of another.
Beware of loosening the cords in you,
Lest a wise man say:
"Listen, if you want to endure in the mouth of the hearers.
Speak after you have mas ~ Miriam Lichtheim

We do have a problem in this country. You can either make a movie and ignore that, or you can acknowledge it and say, this is the water that we're living in. You know this - the movie lives in this - it's centered around this particular problem, and I chose to acknowledge it. ~ Nick Cassavetes

Nobody's bought this land. And no one's going to want it either. It's dying land, lonely land."
"Like me, then," I said.
"Yes, like you." You chewed the corner of your lip. "You both need saving. ~ Lucy Christopher

I can't drive, so I don't need a flash car, and I like living at home, so I don't need a mansion. I'm sensible with money. It's not why I act. ~ Georgia Groome

Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every phase of human endeavor ... It is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn. ~ Emma Goldman

The confirmation of history is that we are not called despite our wounding and betrayal; we are wounded and betrayed because we are called. And God yearns to make your pain redemptive in your life. ~ Stephen Mansfield

While his brain lay slowly dying, Bevan felt his body come back to life. ~ Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

When you're with someone for so long you get used to them, y'know? It's a comfort-zone thing. When we get settled in our comfort zone, trying to pull us out of it even if everything about it is hell and unhealthy, is like trying to pull a fat ass couch potato out of his living room long enough to get a life. ~ J.A. Redmerski

Everyone is weird. Some people just try to act normal. ~ Stephanie Tom

Many of us believe that if we only had more money, we would be happier. Yet--excluding those who live below the poverty line and cannot meet their basic needs for food, shleter, safety, or medical care--greater wealth generally does not lead to substantially greater well-being. One explanation for why more money does not bring lasting happiness is that people become accustomed to their higher standard of living and desire even more money to maintain their happiness. In addition, when people become wealthier, they tend to compare themselves to other wealthy people, rather than to their peers at their previous income levels. ~ Ted Cascio

Life is indeed a storm and while there are times you can sit and watch from the safety of a window pane there are moments you need to grit your teeth and take on the wind and the rain. ~ Ken Scott

And to you, my dear visitors, I wish to speak of this youth, my brother, for there has been no appearance in my life more precious than this one, more prophetic and moving. My heart feels tender, and at this moment I am contemplating my whole life as if I were living it all anew ... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In [this] person, he had, bewilderingly, and for the first time ever, collided with another living soul whose continued existence on this earth he valued more than his own. Was that love? If so, then yes, they were in love. ~ Adam Sternbergh

I bent my head and breathed the fresh new scent of her. I looked into her deep blue eyes and saw reflected there the dawn of my own new life. This little girl seemed to me, at that moment, answer enough to all my questions. To have saved this small, singular one - this alone seemed reason enough that I lived. I knew then that this was how I was meant to go on: away from death and toward life, from birth to birth, from seed to blossom, living my life amongst wonders. ~ Geraldine Brooks