Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.
Jodi PicoultRead
I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now...if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.
Interpretation
Death raises questions about existence and the feelings of those we lose.
This quote reflects the profound confusion and heartache that accompanies the loss of a loved one. It emphasizes the frustration of not knowing the truth about a departed person's experience in death, raising existential questions about suffering and happiness that remain unanswered. The 'question mark' symbolizes the uncertainty we grapple with when faced with mortality, in contrast to the finality of a 'period.'
In practice
During a eulogy, reflecting on the feelings of unanswered questions after losing a loved one.
Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.
Whether it was power they sought, or revenge, or love-well, those were all just different forms of hunger. The bigger the hole inside you, the more desperate you became to fill it.
she told me she'd be a phoenix." The image of the mythical creature rising from the ashes glitters in my mind. "They don't really exist." "She said that depends on whether or not there's someone who can see them.
for 100,000 (dollars), you [can] flatten a house with a wrecking ball. Imagine how much less it [takes] to destroy something than it [does] to build it in the first place.
But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?
when you [lose someone], it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all nerves are still a little raw
Our own grandchildren may demonstrate that-sometimes- Gigantic is Beautiful.
The whole art of meditation is, how to leave the personality easily, move to the center, and be not a person. Just to be and not be a person is the whole art of meditation, the whole art of inner ecstasy.
I'm not very interested in people. I recognize it in myself - there is a basic indifference toward people.
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'
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