Ruby Saylor

“Ladies and Gentlemen...we are floating in Space!”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“A sense of paradise descends from the skies. And I am aware that I am living through an unforgettable moment in my life; it is the kind of awareness we often have precisely when the magic moment has passed. I’m entirely here, without past, without future, entirely focused on the morning, on the music of the horses’ hooves, on the gentleness of the wind caressing my body, on the unexpected grace of contemplating sky, earth, men. I feel a sense of adoration and ecstasy. I’m thankful for being alive. I pray quietly, listening to the voice of nature, and understanding that the invisible world always manifest itself in the visible world.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

“The fact of shame is significant. We feel spontaneously ashamed of the body and its activities. That's a sign of the body's absolute and natural inferiority.' 'Absolute and natural rubbish!' said Rampion indignantly.'shame isn't spontaneous, to begin with. It's artificial, it's acquired. You can make people ashamed of anything. Agonizingly ashamed of wearing brown boots with a black coat, or speaking with the wrong sort of accent, or having a drop at the end of their noses. Of absolutely anything, including the body and its functions. But that particular shame's just as artificial as any other. The Christians invented it, just as the tailors in Savile Row invented the shame of wearing brown boots with a black coat. There was precious little of it before Christian times. Look at the Greeks, the Etruscans.”
― Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point

“… I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. […] If I were to see her again, my face needed to be as clean as hers. Before I could find her, I must first find myself.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Zahir