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“In order to gain something, you have to lose something,” she always said. People are always trying to get something for nothing. But that’s just theft. If you’ve gained something, it means that someone, somewhere, has lost something. Even happiness is built on someone else’s misfortune. She often reminded me of this. In fact, she considered it one of the laws of the universe.
I guess it’s the same with life. We all know it has to end someday, but even so, we act as if we’re going to live forever. Like love, life is beautiful because it must come to an end.
It’s the future you’ll never get to see that you really regret missing most of all when you die.
What did I gain by growing up, and what did I lose? I know the answer to only the second part of that question. Innocence—all those precious hopes and dreams that you can only have when you’re in your adolescence.
With freedom comes uncertainty, insecurity, and anxiety. Human beings exchanged their freedom for the sense of security that comes from living by set rules and routines—despite knowing that they pay the cost of these rules and regulations with their freedom.
I got so caught up with all the little everyday tasks that I ended up wasting the time that I could have been spending on more important things. But the scariest thing is that I never even noticed that I was wasting my own precious time. If only I’d stopped for a moment to get some perspective, away from all that running around I was doing, it would have been obvious what the most important thing was, and which of those phone calls I needed to make (if any) really mattered.
“Cats and humans have been partners for over ten thousand years. One thing you realize when you’ve lived with a cat for a long time is that you may think that you own them, but that’s not really the way it is. Cats simply allow us the pleasure of their company.”
For me, cats are no different from the sun or the ocean or the air we breathe.
“Yeah, but just being alive doesn’t mean all that much on its own. How you live is more important.”
Humans tend to regret the life they never lived and the choices they never made.”
“They say in the end you become aware of who the most important people are in your life and that you finally understand the value of lots of other important, irreplaceable things and how wonderful life truly is.