Mindy > Mindy's Quotes

“My father, who lived to ninety-four, often said that the eighties had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’ too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty. At eighty, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was forty or sixty. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together. I am looking forward to being eighty.”
― Oliver Sacks, Gratitude

“You can't always keep your loved ones with you. You can't always settle your life in one place. The world was made to change. But as long as you cherish the memories and make new ones along the way, no matter where you are, you'll always be at home.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, This Is Where It Ends

“Dad always told me there are more stories in the universe than stars in the sky. And in every story, there's the light of hope. That's why the seniors sent lanterns up to the sky-to make sure the darkness is never absolute.”
― Marieke Nijkamp, This Is Where It Ends

“You can't release penguins on their own, the keeper explained. Like seal lions, some to that, they simply won't go without a fellow creature of their own kind; they won't leave.”
― Tom Michell, The Penguin Lessons

“All of a sudden I found I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive, because, as of that instant, he had a name and his name was Juan Salvador Pinguino and with his name came a surge of hope and the beginning of a bond that would last a lifetime. That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we'd face it together.”
― Tom Michell, The Penguin Lessons

“No, no, you must call him Juan Salvado - John Saved. The others agreed unanimously that it was a more appropriate name than Juan Salvador (John Savior), and so it was that his name became Juan Salvado among his intimate friends, although he remained John Salvador on formal occasions.”
― Tom Michell, The Penguin Lessons

“When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Then came the afternoon at Mrs. Groton's when Mrs. Brown saw the dress and jacket that took her breath away and the idea was born in her. This is what she felt she needed: a dress as strong as armor. She believed the dress would carry her with dignity and grace specifically on Sundays, when she visited Robbie's grave. This is what I must wear.”
― William Norwich

“Books, after all, were expensive, and it was better to eat than read. So the little shelf in Sophie's bedroom contained a selection of volumes amassed lovingly over successive birthdays and Christmases, and the idea of an entire gilded library, old and venerable, covered with the fingerprints of one's ancestors, never needing to be returned to it's rightful owner-why, it stole her will!”
― Beatriz Williams, A Certain Age

“And then Elsa squeezes her eyes together tightly and puts her forehead against his shoulder and her fingers into her jacket pocket and spins the lid of the red felt-tip pen that he gave her when she was small, so she could add her own punctuation marks, and which is still the best present he's ever given her. Or anyone. You gave me your words, she whispers.”
― Frederik Backman

“There's this poem about an old man who says he can't be loved, so he doesn't mind, sort of, being disliked instead. As long as someone sees him, says Elsa.”
― Frederik Backman

“We want to be loved,’ ” quotes Britt-Marie. “ ‘Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.’ ”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“And with great power comes great responsibility, whispers Mum.”
― Frederik Backman

“To me, that's what makes college so great and unique, as opposed to the pros. This is your alma mater. This is a part of you.”
― Tom Rinaldi, The Red Bandanna: A Life. A Choice. A Legacy.

“She heard him call out to everyone," Gerry said. "And he said, "Everyone who can stand, stand now. If you can help others, do so.”
― Tom Rinaldi, The Red Bandanna: A Life. A Choice. A Legacy.

“This was true, except that time lives in the mind, and seconds stop being seconds when your heart is on fire.”
― Scott Stambach, The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

“As a kid I can remember my mother telling me that our lives are merely a reflection of what we see and do. If we are kind, others will treat us with kindness. If we love, we will be loved. If we care, we will be cared for.”
― Debbie Macomber, Twelve Days of Christmas

“The amount I love you, Noah, "she would tell him with her lips to his ear after she read fairy tales about elves and he was jut about to fall asleep, "the sky will never be that big.”
― Fredrick Backman

“Grandpa always calls him "Noahnoah" because he likes his grandson's name twice as much as everyone else's.”
― Fredrick Backman

“Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“But when you're the mom, your whole life is holding the rope against these wily secret agents who never, ever stop trying to get you to drop your end.”
― Kelly Corrigan, Lift

“(Motherhood) I want her to have this thing I have that's so ordinary and tedious and aggravating, and then, so divine.”
― Kelly Corrigan, Lift

“But given everything I do know, no matter how hard it is, how lonely or stressful, still, I would not want to leave this earth without being a mother.”
― kelly corrigan

“Do you know that I love you enough to take in the full reality of your lives? That I can understand the things you think I can't and I can see and know and embrace every bit of you, full frame, no cropping?”
― Kelly Corrigan, Lift

“Are we created by our experiences? Can our deepest self be destroyed by what happens in this life? Or do we have some sort of unchanging, essential soul?”
― Kerry Egan, On Living

“If you want to be saved from your present suffering, you must be willing to change and be changed in the present. That change can be tangible-leaving an abusive relationship, going back to school. But it also can be a change in perception This, in fact, is the harder change. A change of perception to knowing you are enough, and have been since birth, to seeing a world suffused in love and swimming in beauty, despite loneliness, despite pain, illness, loss, trauma, and even atrocity-now that's hard. That seems impossible. Yet, it happens, again and again, and again.”
― Kerry Egan, On Living

“I try to be loveful. We shower so much love on babies and children. But as we grow up, it stops. No one showers love on grown-ups. But i think we need more love as we get older, not less. Life gets harder, not easier, but we stop loving each other so much, just when we need love most. I need more love now that I'm so old, I need love.”
― Kerry Egan, On Living

“Try to be loveful. It's the only message that makes a difference, and it does not matter from whence it comes.”
― Kerry Egan, On Living

“As we get older we all learn that there isn't a finish line....or maybe there is, but it keeps moving. It's a rare moment where we look around, sigh with satisfaction, pull our spouse or kids or pets or parents closer, and say, This is perfect, or Now I have everything. Wanting is the human condition. It's what led us to invent fire and the wheel and Instagram. There's nothing wrong with desire, but just like every self-help book, bumper sticker, and issue of O magazine insists, it's not the destination that matters, but the journey, not the summit, but the climb.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing

“Do not postpone life until two pounds form now. Go on the trip. Wear the strapless dress. Go zip lining, or water-skiing, or swimming with the dolphins. None of us are guaranteed a future. Putting ff joy until you're the right size could mean you'll never experience it at all.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing