More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hand and heart, and later by his head.
To confront finally the worst there is, to look it squarely in the face and say, ‘I know you. You have hurt me, almost to death, but still, I live. And I will go on living.’
That simple act, of offering up her mouth to mine, was like the opening of a floodgate. What followed was a seamless continuation of her kiss. We did not pause to consider wisdom or morality, we did not hesitate at all. The permission we gave each other was absolute.
The colour blue can only be experienced, as can the scent of jasmine or the sound of a flute.
‘I feel we are wed already,’ she whispered. ‘I cannot imagine how the speaking of any vows could make us more truly joined.’
Sometimes it is easier to pull a knife out of a man than to ask him to forget words you have uttered. Even words uttered in anger.’
‘Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad,’
Chade had once told me that assassins must always believe the other person has more skill than they do. It is the only way to remain alive and keep sharp.
But we are two old men, who have grown old together. Sometimes that is a greater closeness. We have come through time to your day and age. We can talk together, quietly, and share memories of a time that exists no more. I can tell you how it was, but it is not the same. It is like being two foreigners, trapped in a land we have come to, unable to return to our own, and having only each other to confirm the reality of the place where we once lived.
No man is so dangerous as the man who cannot decide what he fears.
A secret is only a secret as long as only one man knows it.’
The exercise for centring oneself is a simple one. Stop thinking of what you intend to do. Stop thinking of what you have just done. Then, stop thinking that you have stopped thinking of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is. Then, in that place, you will finally have time to be yourself.
