I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the cyclical nature of life and self-discovery.
Jeanette Winterson's quote suggests that life is not a straightforward journey but rather a circular one, where we may find ourselves revisiting the same experiences or realizations. It emphasizes the idea that through our journeys, we often return to our origins, perhaps changed but still fundamentally connected to who we are at our core.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, you could say, 'As Jeanette Winterson beautifully puts it, I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.'
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy: Don't do to other nations what we don't want happening to us. We endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us?
God is a scientist, not a magician.
I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?
Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?
I feel kind of depressed today... Do you ever have the feeling that life has passed you by? Worse than that... Sometimes I think life and I are going in opposite directions!
If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.
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