"Noble be man, merciful and good."— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Divine.
In a courtyard in 1945, a soldier asked a question no one had asked her in six years. She answered him with Goethe.
"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away." — Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 1994
Every morning, someone kisses someone goodbye at the door, certain there will be another goodbye tomorrow to trade for it. Most days, they're right. That's exactly the problem.
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
Every morning, someone kisses someone goodbye at the door, certain there will be another goodbye tomorrow to trade for it. Most days, they're right. That's exactly the problem.
“We've had that over and over. But we always survived. We're still here.”— Waubgeshig Rice — Moon of the Crusted Snow, 2018
The younger characters call it an apocalypse. One of the elders corrects them, gently. Apocalypse, she says — there isn't even a word for that in her language.
“The art of losing isn't hard to master” — Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art" (poem), 1976
There's a poem almost anyone can relate to — because everyone has lost something. Elizabeth Bishop spent five stanzas convincing herself losing was easy. Then one line gave her away.
On Staying True — Vince Guaraldi
A respected jazz musician found himself scoring music for a children's Christmas cartoon — and instead of feeling diminished, he felt like he'd bought into something worth giving himself to.
On Presence — Mary Oliver
For over forty years, she walked the same woods each morning, watching what most people walk past without noticing. Mary Oliver's answer to living a wild and precious life wasn't a plan — it was daily attention.
On Being There — Jerzy Kosińsky
Chance the gardener knew nothing — and people mistook his simplicity for depth. We see in others exactly what we already believe.
On Restraint — Naomi Osaka
Naomi Osaka has always been quiet in a sport that rewards noise. The world only sees what she chooses to do. It never sees the hundred quiet refusals that made the yes possible.
On Awareness — James Thurber
James Thurber created Walter Mitty — the quiet man who lived entire heroic lives inside his own imagination. Mitty was fiction. The awareness was real.
On Wholehearted Acceptance — Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations as a private journal no one was meant to read. A reflection on wholehearted acceptance — of your circumstances and the people fate placed beside you.
On Anticipation — J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien wrote this for a hobbit who didn't choose his moment. Neither did you. A reflection on courage, uncertainty, and what the present moment is asking of you.
On Love — Frederick Buechner
A Presbyterian minister wrote one sentence about love that no mathematician can explain. Frederick Buechner on the miracle of two people who multiply each other.
On Paying Attention - Warren Zevon
A dying man sat across from David Letterman and said enjoy every sandwich. The most important advice about life came wrapped in the most ordinary thing.
On Second Blooming - Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie discovered a whole new life after seventy. So did Darwin, Mandela, and Grandma Moses. A story about the blooming that comes after everything else.