“It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they ve got the time-span all wrong. From stone s point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well.”
“If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective. We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe. Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day—the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening? It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we’re miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like. When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we’re up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first. In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.”
“I don t believe that. I don t believe that there are bad things about you. Only things that you think are bad.”
“It s HE-RO, the boy argued. No, the girl insisted, it s HER-O.”
“I’m supposed to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty,” I told her. Without a moment’s hesitation, in a split second, my grandmother shrugged and said: “It depends on if you’re drinking or pouring.”
“You have to thank God for the seemingly good and the seemingly bad because really, you don t know the difference [until we get to heaven].”
“Your perspective is always limited by how much you know. Expand your knowledge and you will transform your mind.”
“Everyone’s perception is different; we all see different things. I personally think you see what you want to see.”
“Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people s sorrow.”
“So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners?”
“Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there s no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.”
“As small as a world as large as alone.”
“To accept the lively, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing.”
“Just remember that those who feel profoundly depressed are those whose happiness is likewise intense. What s so wrong with that?”
“Once the blinders are off, it s rather hard to go back to seeing things the way you used to.”
“If you love yourself the most at your happiest moments, there is no reason not to be fond of who you are in the dark.”
“And as I looked at the star, I realised what millions of other people have realised when looking at stars. We’re tiny. We don’t matter. We’re here for a second and then gone the next. We’re a sneeze in the life of the universe.”