Gail > Gail's Quotes

“The heart that
breaks open can
contain the
whole universe.”
― Joanna Macy

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

“The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing”
― Galway Kinnell, Three Books: Body Rags; Mortal Acts, Mortal Words; The Past

“Believe me. But that’s not really your problem. It’s not that you want out.” She turned to look at him, confused. “It’s that you want back in.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Number three, when you look at future climate projections, remember that they are always dependent on a particular emissions scenario. So if you read some scary news article that says the entire Amazon could be gone by the year 2100, or the West Antarctic ice sheet could completely disintegrate, or we could be experiencing 180 days per year of marine heat waves in the Gulf of Mexico, take a step back and think about the underlying assumptions that projection is making about human behavior and human society. The future we get is always dependent on the choices that humans make.”
― Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures