“As Hamlet said to Ophelia, ”God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. The battle between these two halves of identity...Who we are and who we pretend to be, is unwinnable. Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person. One that we reveal to the world and another we keep hidden inside. A duality governed by the balance of light and darkness, within each of us is the capacity for both good and evil. But those who are able to blur the moral dividing line hold the true power.”
“When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere.”
“All right I think we ve been down here in the dark long enough. There s a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand, Constant Reader, and I ll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I m happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It s you I m not entirely sure of.”
“No - the light in Tamani s eyes was much more than a reflection. It was the fire that melted her anger and devestated her resolve, every single time she saw it.”
“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
“Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon, dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light, what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars? What primal night does Man touch with his senses? Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars, through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain: Love is a war of lightning, and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness. Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity, your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages, and a genital fire, transformed by delight, slips through the narrow channels of blood to precipitate a nocturnal carnation, to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.”
“Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with overmindfulness of self. Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast. And life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.”
“In the depth a light will grow, A silver shine no shadows know, Like wings unfolding in the sky, That circle round a gleaming eye, Turning darkness all away, Even depths will know their day, For every shadow has its end, In light! Life will return again!”
“The exceeding brightness of this early sun Makes me conceive how dark I have become.”
“Just remember, a dark shadow need light to exist but light doesn t need darkness to be luminous.”
“Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)”
“If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it s only becasue it doesn t know that the fire can consume it.”
“Life isn t just about darkness or light, rather it s about finding light within the darkness.”
“I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is Disappear Here and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.”
“If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”
“But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.”
“When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call white is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.”