You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.
Walker PercyRead
Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past.
Interpretation
Grieving for what is lost only deepens the feeling of loss; it's better to let go of the past.
Walker Percyβs quote emphasizes the idea that dwelling on grief can hinder healing and prevent moving forward in life. Instead of continuing to mourn what has already been lost, he suggests adopting a mindset that focuses on the present and future, encouraging individuals to embrace life despite their losses.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.
They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide.
It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.
Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their faces away.
Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.
I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
The kindness that's been shown to me, by doctors as well as my family and my friends, it's really saved my life.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
I can have everything I love at the same time. I can have my family, I can have my friends, and I can have my quiet life, which I also like. I can have my football, and I can have everything together, and I don't need to give up one to be better than what I am.
He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.
By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream
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