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161b40d Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift. fate fear Dante Alighieri
5cef22f I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with. fate romance people heart love inspirational dissapointment couples deep Fannie Flagg
e4cc919 We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate. fate hope Amy Tan
bea3405 "A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!" fate harry-potter fame innocence J.K. Rowling
cd80aec Some things are destined to be -- it just takes us a couple of tries to get there. fate J.R. Ward
c7ef371 I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. fate meaning learning-process value fortune Hermann Hesse
a9993e1 "Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?" Mort thought for a moment. "No," he said eventually, "what?" There was silence. Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right." fate questions Terry Pratchett
537ccfa Amor Fati - "Love Your Fate", which is in fact your life. fate life love inspirational Friedrich Nietzsche
30e86cb Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you'll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it. and you'll survive fate valentine Cassandra Clare
63ebd52 Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous. fate death circumstance killed confusion miraculous miracles saved Terry Pratchett
cf5d108 Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear. fate jane-eyre Charlotte Brontë
98c0964 Do you ever wonder why things have to turn out the way they do? fate wonder Nicholas Sparks
fc10ba0 We can't choose our fate, but we can choose others. Be careful in knowing that. fate harry-potter inspirational J.K. Rowling
c7a3138 We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die. fate destiny strength inspirational Douglas Coupland
6533670 You speak of destiny as if it was fixed. fate Philip Pullman
9cce6ab Oh, I am fortune's fool! fate fortune luck William Shakespeare
178fada Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove. fate humor top-8 unfairness misfortune P.G. Wodehouse
60e56fe There is no such thing as coincidence in this world. The only thing is hitsuzen. Hitsuzen...A naturally fore-ordained event. A state in which all other outcomes are impossible. fate fantasy Clamp
0a6f8ec I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice. fate destiny life Jeanette Winterson
90c3eab A complete stranger has the capacity to alter the life of another irrevocably. This domino effect has the capacity to change the course of an entire world. That is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing it. A decision that seems miniscule to you, may be monumental to the fate of the world. alter course domino fate world choice life inspirational monumental chain reaction stranger decision lives J.D. Stroube
320c56a She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn't want to be without her. fate world friendship love otp saving-the-world forget Rick Riordan
7e27b74 It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it. fate W. Somerset Maugham
6a3e1b5 If it's ka it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone fate love ka susan susan-delgado wizard-and-glass roland stephen-king wind Stephen King
b2af367 "Frank heard a laugh behind him. He glanced back and couldn't believe what he saw. Nico di Angelo was actually smiling. "That's more like it," Nico said. "Let's turn this tide!" fate happy destiny happiness tides-have-turned blessing turning-point heroes-of-olympus percy-jackson frank-zhang house-of-hades nico-di-angelo rick-riordan battle surprise fortune luck Rick Riordan
8057660 Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward--that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have. fate life predetermination Kevin Brockmeier
02aeca1 The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. fate self-determination fear life order ignorance superstition secrets Cormac McCarthy
a68e7bc I think of how life takes unexpected twists and turns, sometimes through sheer happenstance, sometimes through calculated decisions. In the end, it can all be called fate, but to me, it is more a matter of faith. fate Emily Giffin
f6bfe8d A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. fate Ursula K. Le Guin
9b9cb2f "Hide from fate all you like," Baba Yellowlegs said as they turned away. "But it shall soon find you!" fate crown-of-midnight Sarah J. Maas
7713792 When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are. fate destiny Ursula K. Le Guin
f56e7b3 I believe in signs....what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect & attention to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take. When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making mistakes. fate sign divine Paulo Coelho
0a8817f Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her. fate religion belief luck Kurt Vonnegut
7bb9fdc the buddhists say there are 149 ways to god. i'm not looking for god, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. understanding fate self-discovery Jeanette Winterson
a65c090 Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted. fate fear life Jacqueline Carey
198ac47 Destiny is a worrying concept. I don't want to be fated, I want to choose. fate Jeanette Winterson
f63c015 Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come fate William Shakespeare
247cb6c For nothing is evil in the beginning. fate mortality J.R.R. Tolkien
98eca82 Being in love with your best friend is problematic. fate pain friends life-quotes davin i-m-in-love love-issues love-problems best-friend-love best-friend-quotes friends-to-lovers friendship-and-love ignoring-issues in-love-with-best-friend in-love-with-my-friend mazing-quotes awesome-quotes bandaids first-aid friend-quotes friendship-true-and-loyal frienship j-m-richards real-friends real-friendship tall-dark-streak-of-lightning tdsol quotes-about-life friendship-quotes so-true best-friends bitterness hurt friend longing J.M. Richards
00fadfc "Fate determines your caste. You must accept it and live according to the rules." You can't really believe that!" I do believe it. That man's misfortune is that he cannot accept his caste, his fate." I know that the Indians wear their caste as a mark upon their foreheads for all to see. I know that in England, we have our own unacknowledged caste system. A laborer will never hold a seat in Parliament. Neither will a woman. I don't think I've ever questioned such things until this moment. But what about will and desire? What if someone wants to change things." Kartik keeps his eyes on the room "You cannot change your caste. You cannot go against fate." That means there is no hope of a better life. It is a trap." That is how you see it," he says softly. What do you mean?" It can be a relief to follow the path that has been laid oud for you, to know your course and play your part in it." But how can you be sure that you are following the right course? What if there is no such thing as destiny, only choice?" Then I do not choose to live without destiny," he says with a slight smile." fate destiny Libba Bray
e29094a Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. fate expectation Amy Tan
e4c2c66 All live to die, and rise to fall. fate life Christopher Marlowe
4aaced0 As much as I cared about him, I wasn't a slave to fate. I could choose to ignore my feelings, strong as they were. It would be painful, but no more so than letting myself pine for my friend. fate pain friends life-quotes best-friend-love best-friend-quotes friends-to-lovers friendship-and-love ignoring-issues in-love-with-best-friend in-love-with-my-friend mazing-quotes arguments awesome-quotes bandaids first-aid friend-quotes friendship-true-and-loyal frienship j-m-richards real-friends real-friendship tall-dark-streak-of-lightning tdsol quotes-about-life friendship-quotes so-true best-friends bitterness hurt friend longing J.M. Richards
6f3d6e7 Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life,the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.' It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment--not discouragement--you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You'll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes. fate positivity strength life love growth nietzsche Joseph Campbell
d35fcbd No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him. fate destiny doom Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
60bcd0a Anyway, it seems to me that the way most people go on living (I suppose there are a few exceptions), they think that the world of life (or whatever) is this place where everything is (or is supposed to be) basically logical and consistent.... It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it's natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me that's just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin. fate life Haruki Murakami
c8ec58b This is an orchestration for an event. For a dance in fact. The participants will be apprised of their roles at the proper time. For now it is enough that they have arrived. As the dance is the thing with which we are concerned and contains complete within itself its own arrangement and history and finale there is no necessity that the dancers contain these things within themselves as well. In any event the history of all is not the history of each nor indeed the sum of those histories and none here can finally comprehend the reason for his presence for he has no way of knowing even in what the event consists. In fact, were he to know he might well absent himself and you can see that that cannot be any part of the plan if plan there be. fate war history destiny Cormac McCarthy
8cdd43d The wind god Favonius had warned him in Croatia: If you let your anger rule you ... your fate will be even sadder than mine. But how could his fate be anything but sad? Even if he lived through this quest, he would have to leave both camps forever. That was the only way he would find peace. He wished there was another option - a choice that didn't hurt like the waters of the Phlegethon - but he couldn't see one. fate destiny life reflection nico-di-angelo Rick Riordan
74a3434 A person's destiny is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known in advance. fate life Haruki Murakami
90c39ac Once a thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won't. Or will-depending. As long as you live, there's always something waiting, and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living. fate living death life inspirational Truman Capote
4d6a830 Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. fate Dodie Smith
530d143 "I, answering in the end, began: 'Alas, fate sorrow love Dante Alighieri
a9960fd The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behavior. The burden is intolerable. fate Jeanette Winterson
f09e4e3 You could study the connections for years and never work it out-it was all about things coming together,things falling apart,time warp, my mother standing out in front of the museum when time flickered and the light went funny, uncertainties hovering on the edge of a vast brightness. the stray chance that might, or might not, change everything. fate meaning life Donna Tartt
7db1e7d "It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")" fate relationship love simple life-changing meeting simplicity Cornell Woolrich
acd100b But I was always coming here. I though about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen. fate religion god Elizabeth Gilbert
babb363 You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love. fate life love Paulo Coelho
3343b57 If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come--the readiness is all. fate the-readiness-is-all William Shakespeare
f5ae23f The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt...He had wished me well in finding my own fate to follow, and I never doubted his sincerity. But it had taken me years to accept that his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangled, waiting for his return. understanding fate pain sorrow comprehension farewell left choose leave part-ways separate wait sincere return seek realize hurt fitz wish follow knowledge desire fool soul Robin Hobb
d5dbab0 If you're in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you're reading, it's fate all the way. fate life David Mitchell
c2c30b5 Beware what you speak,' said the Merlin very softly, 'for indeed the words we speak make shadows of what is to come, and by speaking them we bring them to pass, my king. fate merlin Marion Zimmer Bradley
f0f0ca5 Man doeth this and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knows not to what end his sense doth prompt him; for when he strikes he is blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threads that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth beneath--all those things are needful, one to the other, and who knows the end of each? good-and-evil fate time free-will choice change chain-of-events long-term circumstance intention cause-and-effect results opposites result chance crime H. Rider Haggard
29a460b "Then I glanced at the ring on my finger. The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. I know where I came from--but where did all you zombies come from? I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once--and you all went away. So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light. fate Robert A. Heinlein
f1c7b99 A certain something, he felt, had managed to work its way in through a tiny opening and was trying to fill a blank space inside him. The void was not one that she had made. It had always been there inside him. She had merely managed to shine a special light on it. fate love Haruki Murakami
a2a15a9 Every man carries the seed of his own death, and you will not be more than a man. You will have everything; you cannot have more... fate mordred merlin Mary Stewart
9c225e3 "... "That at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie." - The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo -" fate life-lessons life the-alchemist lives Paulo Coelho
b50548c You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies! fate love stargirl serendipity Jerry Spinelli
fd427d6 Now when Turin learnt from Finduilas of what had passed, he was wrathful, and he said to Gwindor: 'In love I hold you for your rescue and sake-keeping. But now you have done ill to me, friend, to betray my right name, and call my doom upon me, from which I would lie hid.' But Gwindor answered: 'The doom lies in yourself, not in your name. fate doom J.R.R. Tolkien
d695735 I was irritated by the way he conflated his own shifting needs with an impersonal destiny. I want it, therefore...it's in the stars! fate Ian McEwan
ea1e422 Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. fate future Jhumpa Lahiri
4ff22b9 Fate is but a dying wish... Of a world that is beyond control. Like a single lotus flower, the future blossoms; Upon its petals, two people shall be free. fate love lotus-flower Youka Nitta
d273339 For fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed. fate sexing-the-cherry jeanette-winterson Jeanette Winterson
f885fe3 Niall: We're tossed by the winds of fate. Once we end where they blow us, we make of ourselves that we will. fate niall nora-roberts Nora Roberts
c9c66f1 If a dream can tell the future it can also thwart that future. For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come. He is bound to no one that the world unfold just so upon its course and those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream? fate predestination sorcery prophecy Cormac McCarthy
5e4bcb1 You beg fate to make your fears into reality, Aleran. But for the moment, they are only fears. They may come. If so, then face them and overcome them. Until then, pay them no mind. You have enough to think on. fate reality fears jim-butcher Jim Butcher
bbbc674 Each of us is born to follow a star, be it bright and shining or dark and fated. Sometimes the path of these stars will cross, bringing love or hatred. However, if you look up at the skies on a clear night, out of all the countless lights that twinkle and shine, there will come one. That star will be seen in a blaze, burning a path of light across the roof of the earth, a great comet. fate stars redwall Brian Jacques
85a2cd9 The hands of fate keep time on a heart-shaped clock. fate cirque-du-freak du harkat mulds freak deep watch deep-thoughts Darren Shan
e1305d5 That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate? fate life fortune Alexandre Dumas
226ed20 Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. --Chuang Tse: XXIII understanding fate limits Ursula K. Le Guin
ffd094c I do believe in fate, Anne-not the blind fate that gives one no freedom of choice, but a fate that sets down a pattern for each of our lives and gives us choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy. fate patterns Mary Balogh
8e7d9b9 To think that we might easily have gone through life not knowing each other, missing all this free flow of love and ideas and warmth and sharing... We share really almost everything. (Avis DeVoto to Julia Child) fate destiny friendship Joan Reardon
0d7c52a She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of time and chance, except perhaps fair play fate serenity powerlessness surrender Thomas Hardy
2ba12bb You weren't being punished. You were waiting for me. fate destiny love jondalar Jean M. Auel
0b7a44b Fate and character are different names for the same idea. fate Hermann Hesse
8d79680 "Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down again. Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we are doomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won't be disappointed." If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. But after all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted a mountain high! A hill wasn't enough. From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I'd been kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I'd been betrayed, deceived, tied to, used, poisoned ... but all that was over now." perfection fate defeat greed happiness decieved poisened used years-of-struggle towmorrow great-expectations defeated vow captive doomed wanting striving doom vows years dreaming wants put-downs expectations longing V.C. Andrews
70c15c3 I believe in times of adversity there's a line that is sometimes drawn, a line that separates your old life from your new. You cross the line, you'll never be the same. fate life Kresley Cole
48eaa4b He talked about luck and fate and numbers coming up, yet he never ventured a nickel at the casinos because he knew the house had all the percentages. And beneath his pessimism, his bleak conviction that all the machinery was rigged against him, at the bottom of his soul was a faith that he was going to outwit it, that by carefully watching the signs he was going to know when to dodge and be spared. It was fatalism with a loophole, and all you had to do to make it work was never miss a sign. Survival by coordination, as it were. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh. fate existential luck Hunter S. Thompson
eb9dd4f I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains. fate pain Charlotte Brontë
4693a6b The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell? fate responsibility destiny self-deception devil Umberto Eco
171138f I'd had a little feeling of destiny. Because, you see, what I mean about affinities is true from friendships down to even the accidental glance at someone on the street-there's always a definite reason somewhere. I think even the poets would agree with me. fate poets relationships friendship patricia-highsmith the-price-of-salt red-string-of-fate Patricia Highsmith
50fe9e2 Mr. Asher, you can resist who you are for only so long. Finally, you just decide to go with fate. fate life ínpirational Christopher Moore
10be694 "That part of your life is over. Set it aside as something you have finished. Complete or no, it is done with you. No being gets to decide what his life is "supposed to be"...'Be a man. Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else." present fate good future honesty past destiny life truth aside complete forgo meant not part section set survive to decide done finish discover over end path be forget dead Robin Hobb
a10fdc3 He is where he is supposed to be. And yet the place he has found is also of his own choosing. That is a piece of luck not to be despised. fate luck Cormac McCarthy
3b617cc Atlas said, 'Must my future be so heavy?' Hera said, 'That is your present, Atlas. Your future hardens every day, but it is not fixed.' 'How can I escape my fate?' 'You must choose your destiny. fate future mythology Jeanette Winterson
141ffff But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. fate despised scotland Dorothy Dunnett
6ef0852 Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance. understanding fate self-determination destiny education ignorance Pearl S. Buck
36a39ac "My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was af if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said "fate" because she couldn't pronounce the "th" sound in "faith". And later I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control. I found out the most could have was hope, and with that I wasn't denying any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are, here's where the odds should be placed. I remember the day I started thinking this, it was such a revelation to me. It was the day my mother lost her faith in God. She found that things of unquestioned certainty could never be trusted again. We had gone to the beach, to a secluded spot south of the city near Devil's Slide. My father had read in magazine that this was a good place to catch ocean perch. And although my father was not a fisherman but a pharmacist's assistant who had once been a doctor in China, he believed in his , his ability to do anything he put his mind to. My mother believed she had to cook anything my father had a mind to catch. It was this belief in their that had brought my parents to America. It had enabled them to have seven children and buy a house in Sunset district with very little money. It had given them the confidence to believe their luck would never run out, that God was on their side, that house gods had only benevolent things to report and our ancestors were pleased, that lifetime warranties meant our lucky streak would never break, that all the elements were now in balance, the right amount of wind and water." fate god luck Amy Tan
d8eca8a There is some history that I want not to have happened. I resist the consequences of being Nemesis. fate history destiny consequences Wallace Stegner
3f119f5 A life path may have strange twists and turnings, and we do not always end up where we intend to go.... fate life turns path Marion Zimmer Bradley
4acef04 I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. fate responsibility freedom life-lessons duties Robin Hobb
957e906 "I can see that you go through life athwart it. You see the flow of events, you are able to tell how you could most easily fit yourself into it. But you dare to oppose it. And why? Simply because you look at it and say, 'this fate does not suit me. I will not allow it to befall me.'" Amber shook her head, but her small smile made it an affirmation. "I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and on it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You... you would rather go naked into the storm." fate Robin Hobb
c6adf91 Can't you see there's a determinism about the fate of nations? They all seem to get what they deserve in the long run. fate karma history politics geopolitics just-desserts nations determinism Malcolm Lowry
c12f599 Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in faces--though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. fate destiny freewill Herman Melville
90573ba "They had been talking about his friend Z. when she announced, "If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him." Even then, her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza loved him and not his friend Z. Apart from her consummated love for Tomas, there were, in the realm of possibility, an infinite number of unconsummated loves for other men. We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the "Es muss sein!" to our own great love. Tomas often thought of Tereza's remark about his friend Z. and came to the conclusion that the love story of his life exemplified not "Es muss sein!" (It must be so), but rather "Es konnte auch anders sein" (It could just as well be otherwise)." fate love es-muss-sein six-laughable-fortuities Milan Kundera
60b729b "I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
73ba08c For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as do the ordinary people, but to fulfill it in its true potential - the imagination. fate love escapism creativity Lawrence Durrell
02e60e3 From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. fate life vow vows domination control V.C. Andrews
fbaaa9a I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. fate persistence J.R.R. Tolkien
3770ec8 . . . is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? fate temptation duty Donna Tartt
48f8e43 For the first time I began to perceive that true sympathy cannot be switched on and off like an electric current, that anyone that identifies himself with the fate of another is robbed to some extent of his own freedom. sympathy fate individuality freedom identity identify rob robbed Stefan Zweig
6478149 A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
42c20c6 "Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what happens that is the mystery. It is whether it has to happen no matter what, whether it is ordered and ordained, fixed and fated, or whether it can be missed, avoided, circumvented, passed by; that is the mystery. If she had not come along the Via Piemonte that day, would it still have happened? If she had come along the Via Piemonte that day, but ten minutes later than she did, would it still have happened? Therein lies the real mystery. And no one ever knows, and no one ever will. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")" fate story free-will life random-chance mystery Cornell Woolrich
2567a3c It is true. Indeed, that is why I dared not speak. I have yearned to be again at the side of my beloved Arianllyn, and my thoughts are with her now. But had I chosen to return, I would ever wonder whether my choice was made through wisdom or following the wishes of my own heart. I see this is as it must be, and the destiny laid upon me. I am content to die here. fate love wisdom folly Lloyd Alexander
7d673b2 Great paintings--people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they're reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a lifetime of perfectly sincere museum-going where you traipse around enjoying everything and then go out and have some lunch. But if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don't think, 'oh, I love this picture because it's universal.' 'I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.' That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you. An individual heart-shock. Your dream, Welty's dream, Vermeer's dream. You see one painting, I see another, the art book puts it at another remove still, the lady buying the greeting card at the museum gift shop sees something else entire, and that's not even to mention the people separated from us by time--four hundred years before us, four hundred years after we're gone--it'll never strike anybody the same way and the great majority of people it'll never strike in any deep way at all but--a really great painting is fluid enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very particular. Yours, yours. I was painted for you. And--oh, I don't know, stop me if I'm rambling... but Welty himself used to talk about fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn't be an object. It'd be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag. fate painting Donna Tartt
f9fac7d Fate has a cruel sense of humor, don't you think? fate sense-of-humor Christopher Paolini
e569268 Two silent time zones had now merged to form the standard time of one man's fate; and it is not impossible that the poet in New Wye and the thug in New York awoke that morning at the same crushed beat of their Timekeeper's stopwatch. fate time destiny Vladimir Nabokov
0ee66d1 I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. fate shakespeare literature friends literary-references lolita vladimir-nabokov emma-bovary madame-bovary gustave-flaubert king-lear expectations Vladimir Nabokov
9b573e9 "The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can't recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
7879b53 I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching trees growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
f1f3c26 "In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, "When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
db3704b "Are you happy?" "I think I may be going to be happy." Remember, things do not force, forge or fashion. They fall into place" fate happiness hope life Ann Beattie
b2e0240 Ah, the world was ever so. How sad are heroes when their tasks are done... fate heroes Michael Moorcock
829899b "And I still say it was just a coincidence;' he muttered pugnaciously. 'You say it too! Look at me and say it! It was just a coincidence. That happened to be the nearest place on the dial where they both met exactly, those two hands. My blows dented them. They got stuck there just as the works died, that was all. Stay sane whatever you do. Say it over and over. It was just a coincidence!' Outside the tall French windows, in the velvety night-sky, the stars in all their glory twinkled derisively in at them. ("Speak To Me Of Death")" sanity fate desitny curse Cornell Woolrich
4743a4e There can be no doubt that the chief fault we have developed, through the long course of human evolution, is a certain basic passivity. When provoked by challenges, human beings are magnificent. When life is quiet and even, we take the path of least resistance, and then wonder why we feel bored. A man who is determined and active doesn't pay much attention to 'luck'. If things go badly, he takes a deep breath and redoubles his effort. And he quickly discovers that his moments of deepest happiness often come after such efforts. The man who has become accustomed to a passive existence becomes preoccupied with 'luck'; it may become an obsession. When things go well, he is delighted and good humored; when they go badly, he becomes gloomy and petulant. He is unhappy--or dissatisfied--most of the time, for even when he has no cause for complaint, he feels that gratitude would be premature; things might go wrong at any moment; you can't really trust the world... Gambling is one basic response to this passivity, revealing the obsession with luck, the desire to make things happen. The absurdity about this attitude is that we fail to recognize the active part we play in making life a pleasure. When my will is active, my whole mental and physical being works better, just as my digestion works better if I take exercise between meals. I gain an increasing feeling of control over my life, instead of the feeling of helplessness (what Sartre calls 'contingency') that comes from long periods of passivity. Yet even people who are intelligent enough to recognize this find the habit of passivity so deeply ingrained that they find themselves holding their breath when things go well, hoping fate will continue to be kind. fate willpower sartre luck Colin Wilson
50c191c All is best, though we oft doubt, what the unsearchable dispose, of highest wisdom brings about. fate inspirational John Milton
09d73de He wondered at times whether he didn't belong to a class of people secretly convinced they had an arrangement with fate; in return for docility or ingenuous good will they were to be shielded from the worst brutalities in life. fate life good-will brutality Saul Bellow
2d32942 Thunder and blood and night must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this great piece. fate doom E.R. Eddison
754221b Every decent man in America ought to swoon with joy for the opportunity to crush with his heel the woolly head of this black lizard, to keep him from scuttling on his belly farther over the earth and spitting forth his venom of death! fate hate scathing vengeance Richard Wright
b111ccb If fate doesn't make you laugh, then you just don't get the joke. fate Gregory David Roberts
c0f9cf1 Follow your fate, and be satisfied with it, and be glad not to be a second-hand motor salesman, or a yellow-press journalist, pickled in gin and nicotine, or a cripple - or dead. fate nicotine gin journalist jobs Ian Fleming
ba8bcbd In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and they stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement, and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for B. E. A. Flight No. 130. fate hurricane-room flying plane safety Ian Fleming
118c44a But we do not choose our deaths. The Norns do that at the foot of Yggdrasil and I imagined one of those three Fates holding the shears above my thread. She was ready to cut, and all that mattered now was to keep tight hold of my sword so that the winged women would take me to Valhalla's feasting-hall. fate valhalla sword Bernard Cornwell
17a6c0e "What do you mean by yuanfen?" She thought for a minute and replied, "It means: that apportionment of love which is destined for you in this world." fate love Lan Samantha Chang
83b91bf Although I am unconvinced that I desire life, I am not yet ready to embrace death. fate living life Charles Stross
d3d0ee1 There are no accidents in this world, that no living being is seduced into an entanglement that he did not invite with his innermost desires. Would you agree with my estimation? fate innermost-desires Karen Essex
6523cd3 "Well, this is the hardest part to believe; look, you can suspend me if you want to, but it's the God's honest truth. This man Tompkins came all the way down to where I was bending over the body at the foot of the stairs. I straightened up and covered him with my gun. It didn't faze him in the least, he kept moving right on past me toward the street-door. Not quickly, either; as slowly as if he was just going out for a walk. He said, 'It isn't my time yet. You can't do anything to me with that.' ("Speak To Me Of Death")" fate Cornell Woolrich
dad7af6 Is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about? ... Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. fate meaning determinism Milan Kundera
3d2774f Love is like recognition. It's the moment when you catch sight of someone and you think There is someone I have business with in this life. There is someone I was born to know. fate love Daniel Abraham
5ba1edb Whether you live or die, whether you're bad or good, whether you're born or not, it's all arbitrary... but what can I say? I don't like fate or chance, and I don't always play by the rules, legalist as I am. fate philosophy attorneys legalist vigilante legalism law chance Rebecca McNutt
8cce462 There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. There are certain lottery tickets I can buy, thereby increasing my odds of finding contentment. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. i can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life - whether I will see them as curses or opportunities (and on the occasions when I can't rise to the most optimistic viewpoint, because I'm feeling too damn sorry for myself, I can choose to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts. fate life Elizabeth Gilbert
e10680f "Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready-for what? I won't see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. "For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see," says Ruysbroeck, "and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else." But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn't make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn't catch the consonant that shaped it into sense." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul longing poet creation Annie Dillard
d90ee72 It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves of the hardwoods from here to Hudson's Bay. It was as if the season's colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the tilt that gives way to headlong rush. And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity, the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still, the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
b488979 "All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam's waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam's curse. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
900bb3a And under the cicadas, deeper down that the longest taproot, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there, minutely at a rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun's surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet, the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger; feel the now. Spring is seeping north, towards me and away from me, at sixteen miles a day. Along estuary banks of tidal rivers all over the world, snails in black clusters like currants are gliding up and down the stems of reed and sedge, migrating every moment with the dip and swing of tides. Behind me, Tinker Mountain is eroding one thousandth of an inch a year. The sharks I saw are roving up and down the coast. If the sharks cease roving, if they still their twist and rest for a moment, they die. They need new water pushed into their gills; they need dance. Somewhere east of me, on another continent, it is sunset, and starlings in breathtaking bands are winding high in the sky to their evening roost. The mantis egg cases are tied to the mock-orange hedge; within each case, within each egg, cells elongate, narrow, and split; cells bubble and curve inward, align, harden or hollow or stretch. And where are you now? fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
fd6335f Perhaps there can be no thanks nor any blame, but only recognition of the forces that brought us and bound us to our inevitable fates. fate blame Robin Hobb
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