Thursday, April 19, 2018

Q is for Quotations

I love quotations and used to put one on the board every morning for my students to react to. Sometimes they were serious, and sometimes not. I always had an opinion about them, but I didn’t share it with the kids because I wanted them to write what THEY thought, THEIR opinions. I don’t really remember any of the quotations, though they’re written down somewhere, except one: “One cannot argue about opinion.” I really like that one because it gives a person permission to believe anything he or she wants.

What I want to share with you today are quotations about three specific areas: writing , reading, and grief. They may not sound related, but they are to me: I turned to both reading and writing during my time of active grief after our son died. Through the years, I have collected quotations about all three areas.

GRIEF Quotations
“If we knew what was going to happen around the corner, we wouldn’t get up in the morning.” -- Polly Shivers Walker (This is ever so true. I think that one of God’s biggest blessings is that He doesn’t tell us what will happen in the future.)

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” -- Anne Lamott  (I remember people saying to me, when Jay died, “How will you ever get over this?’, meaning Jay’s death. My reply came straight from God, “I won’t get over it, but I’ll get through it with the help of my family and friends and most of all . . . God.”)

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deper the grief, the closer is God!” -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face – I know it’s an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”  --Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle(I did this!)

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”  -- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed  (So true! This is one of the most beautiful books about grief.)

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
From an Irish headstone”  -- Richard Puz, The Carolinian

“I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.” -- Mitch Albom, For One More Day  (Jay died more than 25 years ago, and I still miss him every day.)

“Not only had my brother disappeared, but – and bear with me here – part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from then on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.” --  John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back  (I know that this is how our daughter, Wendy, feels.)

READING Quotations
“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman  (When we went back to church, about two weeks after Jay died, my librarian friend had gathered all the books she could find in our church library about how parents dealt with the death of a child. Because I could empathize with those parents and walk a bit in their shoes, I was able to learn how to deal with the death of our son.)

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison

“We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind.” – Anna Quindlen  (I can hardly go to sleep without reading first.)

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” – P. J. O’Rourke  (I hope thrillers are in this category!)

“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing.” – Anonymous (Well, Mr. Anonymous surely did know what he was talking about!)

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” – C.S. Lewis  (I wish I would do this!)

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C.S. Lewis (I’d rather have coffee, but I do love a long book!)

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” – Henry Ward Beecher (Oh, so very true . . . or on Amazon! I’m a sucker for a book!!)

WRITERS/WRITING Quotations
“I write to find out what I’m thinking about.” – Edward Albee

“It seems to me that writing is a marvelous way of making sense of one’s life, both for the writer and for the reader.” – John Cheever   (I write memoir so that someday IF anyone in my family is interested, he or she can see what I was thinking and what happened to me.)

“I write; therefore, I am.” – Samuel Johnson

“An experience isn’t finished until it’s written.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“We write to taste life twice: in the moment and in the retrospection.” – Anais Nin

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor


I have many more quotations that I love, but I don’t have the time to write them, and you don’t have the time to read them; however, I can’t close my piece on quotations without giving you my very favorite quotation in the whole world. It speaks my heart:

There is an endearing tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her by misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him. 
—Washington Irving


                                             

2 comments:

Marcy said...

So many wonderful quotes! I just placed several books on hold at our local library so I can explore these thoughts further. Thanks for sharing!

Cerrillos Sandy said...

And thanks for reading and commenting, dear Marcy!!