The Celebrants Quotes

“We weren’t meant to see everything, we weren’t built to do everything, we aren’t capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we’ve made.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“My point is, we were all figuring out this thing called life, and in truth we probably are still. But there is always someone a little farther down the path, and if they have a kind heart, if they truly care about others, every so often they turn back and light the way.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single one, and the life of that candle will not be shortened. That’s what you do for others. You light their candle with yours.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“To think about life is to contemplate death—it’s what makes living so valuable. Our time here is limited, gone in the blink of an eye.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Everyone was on the same ticking clock. They might fool themselves into thinking that more time affords them opportunities to do more things, that the future is open-ended. But the world is simply too big. We weren’t meant to see everything, we weren’t built to do everything, we aren’t capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we’ve made.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Not everything had to be Paris to be a life experience. It was just that some things needed to be new, and carry with them the air of excitement that comes with the uncharted.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Life is what you celebrate. All of it.
Even its end.” —Joanne Harris, Chocolat”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“You only live once. That was the truth of it. But if you do it right, and he felt that he had, once is more than enough. JORDAN AARÓN VARGAS Veteran public”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“The purpose of art is to evoke, to awaken, to enliven, to anger, to romance, to shake the soul alive. An analytical mind putting reason, meaning, or even something unseemly like a price spoiled everything we love about, well, love itself. The mystery of it. The thrill. The reckless abandon of so completely surrendering ourselves to the object of our desire. The exhilaration. The shortness of breath. The physical response at an almost cellular level.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Humans led with their hearts and it took all five of their senses (six, if you count common) time to catch up. Brains would always try to keep pace, but brains were easily tricked, filtering everything as they do through the heart's chosen lens.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“But bracing medical news often comes wrapped in depression and changes to the physical self, coupled with new medications that drained one of the energy needed to globe-trot. One gave thought and consideration to what was most important, and one’s thinking tended to center on home. Family. Why go off to the far reaches of biodiverse places like New Zealand to see the Emerald Lakes when you could walk the reservoir in Central Park at a slow pace and then sleep in your own bed that night? Everyone was on the same ticking clock. They might fool themselves into thinking that more time affords them opportunities to do more things, that the future is open-ended. But the world is simply too big. We weren’t meant to see everything, we weren’t built to do everything, we aren’t capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we’ve made.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“They banded together with a promise to throw one another living funerals so that none of them would ever be left to wonder what impact they'd had on the others. Their mission: leave nothing left unsaid.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Marielle had read a study recently that said some people didn’t have inner monologues. That their brains were free of the narrator that was so active in her own, never more so than in the quiet moments before sleep (when sleep came) and now (apparently) meditation. That they experienced emotion without coupling words with it. She wondered how they ever knew what to say out loud, if they didn’t say it in their own heads first, or how they composed an email, or decided what to order from a menu, or released the stress and anxiety that came with cussing people out silently to themselves. Letting go of thoughts only replaced them with a running commentary about how difficult it was to let go of them. A worry about empty spaces, and if her brain might collapse in on itself if it wasn’t running an endless narration about anything and everything she experienced, and what she might look like with a dented skull.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Have an appetite for life, coupled with a genuine interest in others.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“It’s all going to kill you. You might as well do something fun.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“We celebrated people after they were gone in a manner designed to bring closure to those left behind. But closure was not what was needed when it comes to death and dying; openness was.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“They, like every other living thing that drew breath, were already in the throes of dying, used cars losing value the moment they were driven off the lot. And yet here they were at a starting line, comically stretching cold muscles, waiting for the BANG of a starter pistol, not realizing they were twenty-two years into a race that had different finish lines for them all.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“But the world is simply too big. We weren’t meant to see everything, we weren’t built to do everything, we aren’t capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we’ve made.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Alec was the version of themselves that was forever young. In dying, he had somehow become immortal.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“A group of young women bustled past, brushing Marielle’s shoulder. She looked at them wistfully, wishing to be them once again. Young. Happy. Carefree. Was life better then? Or did young people just have the energy to better deal with its crushing disappointments”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“thought”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Not believing in something and not needing something were two different things.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“her experience, not nearly enough men apologized for their misdeeds, and she felt a lot more could be accomplished in this world if they did.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“The waterslides were a perfect ride. He would be sloshed side to side on a little blue mat that kept his young body from sticking to the smooth surface as he barreled down toward a pool. It was scary, but not too, exhilarating but not exhausting, draining—but also surprisingly invigorating. He would squeal with delight as he hit the shallow pool, then run back up the concrete path for another turn”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“Marielle was the life of the party, a weight lifted from her as if she had molted her skin and been reborn as someone new. Maybe it wasn’t a funeral she needed so much as permission.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“This was not their little game as usual, “funeral” as pick-me-up, designed to give them a chance at a new life when they felt most at wit’s end with their old. This funeral was a real goodbye. Only, none of them knew that yet.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“We should have our funerals. You know, now while we’re still alive to appreciate them.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“My purpose, in this life,
has been to love and spend it with you.”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants

“You only live once.
That was the truth of it.
But if you do it right, and he felt that he had, once is more than enough”
― Steven Rowley, The Celebrants