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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| dc286f1 | I am trying to convince myself that failure is interesting. I look the word up in the to find its earliest incarnation, but it has always been just 'failure.' There's no Indo-European root meaning originally 'to dare' or 'mercy' or 'hummingbird' to make of the whole mess a mysterious poem. I can find no other fossilized remains in the word. Humility comes along on its own dime. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 95c49ad | It isn't just the dying part; it's the thought of the day coming when I will have already dead five, ten, two hundred years. All those centuries piling on top of me, like so many fallen trees. The fact that I will neither know nor care is of little comfort because I'm not, as yet, dead. The only cure for the fear of death is death. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 74f2b98 | My definition of fear is that it's a constant companion, a sidekick, riding you like a watch, going in and out of the days. I don't live like that anymore. The fact that I'm sixty-three has something to do with it. What I used to fear was growing old--not the aches and pains part or the what-have-I-done-with-my-life part or the threat of illness, none of that. I just couldn't imagine what my life would be like without the option of looking .. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| cb72508 | her start to go in the house, distract her with hand claps or "Uh Oh!" and immediately take her outside, giving lots of praise and treats for going outside. If you find a puddle or pile after the fact, say nothing to her," | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 7357ea0 | When I was young, the future was where all the good stuff was kept, the party clothes, the pretty china, the family silver, the grown-up jobs. The future was a land of its own, and we couldn't wait to get there. Not that youth wasn't great, but it came with disadvantages; I remember the feeling I was missing something really good that was going on somewhere else, somewhere I wasn't. I remember feeling life passing me by. I remember impatien.. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| b3c7099 | I was in love with a poet. "I'm in it for the pleasure," I told my poet once, in a moment of bravado. The poet grinned at me. "I'm in it for the pain," he said. It ended sadly. The kind of ending where you wait together, holding hands and weeping, while off in another room, love slowly dies." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 344172c | Why does forgiveness irritate me so much?" I ask Chuck. "Because it's the ultimate act of passive aggression," he says. "Because it keeps sin alive," says my sister." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| f874263 | He remembers what I forget and I remember what he forgets. It's too late for either of us to make another old friend. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| c4a6861 | Wonderful news, a lovely day, but I don't trust good news and I don't like good weather. Dread has been my faithful companion, and without it I am alone. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 8870c5f | I tried not to think of this as an omen, but unwelcome thoughts enter my head all the time. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| d375b3e | I can never make the same painting twice, not that I want to, I guess. Still, it would be nice to make a better version of something, or try it in different colors, but I never remember how I did it, or when I fiddled with it, or what went down first. A lot depends on how long you let the paint set before interfering. I drip and fling and pour color onto the glass. Then I push the paint around. You have to have some faith. If it looks like .. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 8f6c175 | Once upon a time, when I was young, his forgetting might have rendered my memory meaningless. I no longer require so much from life. | growth life-philosophy meaning personal-development personal-development-insights | Abigail Thomas | |
| 9e312ea | Tirade Against "He Passed Away" You never hear it said, "He is passing away." It is always a fait accompli. "He passed." How I hate it. As if the body had nothing to do with it, as if the body hadn't even been around at the time but off playing Scrabble somewhere, or having a drink while the tenant moved out. Dying is the body's call, the shutting down of services is the body's last bit of business. Give credit where credit is due. Honor th.. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 85e237a | Thomas Seymour was executed on March 20, 1549. By some accounts, Elizabeth remarked, "This day died a man with much wit and very little judgment." Unfortunately, she didn't say it." -- | Abigail Archer | ||
| 7e796f5 | Before this reaches you, you will have learned, the Circumstances of the Insurrections in England,13 which discover So deep and So general a discontent and distress, that no wonder the Nation Stands gazing at one another, in astonishment, and Horror. To what Extremities their Confusions will proceed, no Man can tell. They Seem unable to unite in any Principle and to have no Confidence in one another. Thus it is, when Truth and Virtue are lo.. | Lester J. Cappon | ||
| 0a7c0f2 | neurosis is for the young, who think they are made of time | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 32b0769 | THERE WAS A YOUNG MAN WHO HAD ARRIVED AT the Northeast Center angry and belligerent, as inclined to take a swing at you as not. He began showing up in Bill's studio and started to paint. Bill watched him become an artist, and gradually he stopped being at the mercy of his rages. He got well enough to leave the center and move to a group home. This is what he said to Bill before he left: "What is art, anyway, except not pounding on walls." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 4614825 | He said maybe irony is the lens through which we see the picture in reverse | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 08f859e | Being cautious is new territory; my specialty was leaping, not looking. These days I pay attention. You can stumble uphill as easily as down. Ice comes in smooth and corrugated. Plastic bags are slippery underfoot. A big dog can knock you to your knees. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 28e1eba | Yesterday in his hospital room my husband asked urgently, "Will you move me twenty-six thousand miles to the left?""Yes," I said, not moving from my chair. After a moment he said, "Thank you," adding in wonder, "I didn't feel a thing." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 22eae7d | Sometimes I feel like I'm rescuing a drowning man, and I only have time to rise to the surface for one gasp of air before I go back down again. There is an exhilaration to it, a high born only partly of exhilaration, and I find myself almost frighteningly alive. There is nothing like calamity for refreshing the moment. Ironically, the last several years my life had begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down.. | humble underwear | Abigail Thomas | |
| ff62bc0 | Good things happen slowly," said a doctor in the ICU months ago," and bad things happen fast." Those were comforting words, and they comfort me today. Recovery is a long, slow process. There are good days and bad days for both of us." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 38cf5c8 | Part of what I've learned is that if it isn't life and death, it isn't life and death. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| c2bcea9 | looks as if I have an open umbrella concealed under my skirt. How did that happen? | Abigail Thomas | ||
| d65a296 | I am trying to make sense of this. Survivor's guilt, acceptance, there were words that made me roll my eyes; surely I was too sophisticated for such cliches... So now today I look up the word acceptance and the definition is "to receive gladly" and that doesn't sound right. I flip to the back, and look up its earliest root, "to rasp," and discover this comes from the old English for "a thread used in weaving," and bingo, that's it. You can'.. | weave weaving | Abigail Thomas | |
| 6cb129c | Death is both a certainty and an unknown, Chuck says. It's hard to get a grip on it. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 8efb60a | Australian Aborigines slept with their dogs for warmth on cold nights, the coldest being a "three dog night." --WIKIPEDIA" | Abigail Thomas | ||
| d640900 | She was tired of relationships whose greatest intimacy consisted of sitting up all night weeping while love died. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 7bb9d63 | You can appreciate things at four in the morning that would go right past you during the day. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| a077b1a | and you have to take gladly what life offers, she has learned that much, and sometimes you get lucky. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? There's nothing wrong with that. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 63d3cdc | Subordinates may initiate contact more often, but the one with the higher rank gets to decide when and if to interact. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| a5d8414 | I drove my Border Collies crazy for a few weeks trying to teach them to wait at the door as a group and then go outside one at a time. Each dog could go out the door after I said his or her name, followed by the word OK. As soon as I said "OK," not surprisingly, all the dogs would get up and move forward, no matter whose name preceded it. I knew it would be hard for them, since they had all learned as individuals that "OK" meant "Go ahead a.. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 5579d1a | If "OK" meant that "it's all right to get up now," it makes sense that Pip would respond when she heard it. So if your dog Chief can pick the word sit out of the middle of a sentence, what is he to make of "Good sit" after he already sat? With Pip I got caught up in using words as if I were talking to a human, and I think other owners replicate that mistake often.1" | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 2c4efa3 | electrical cords, dangerous cleaning supplies, household chemicals, sugar free gum with xylitol (which can be fatal to dogs) and potentially toxic plants, like lilies and philodendrons. Put irreplaceable items, such as photo albums or a toy that a child uses as a security blanket out of reach. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 1b24592 | Generally dogs do best if their crates are in rooms that you frequently use, but that aren't in high traffic areas or in front of windows. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 76bc29a | Please take this caution about keeping a new dog on leash seriously; an escaped dog is one of the most common problems that people experience with adopted dogs. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 331a82e | Ideally play is joyful and childlike, a physically and psychologically healthy exercise for both people and dogs. Psychologists and spiritual counselors advise us all to put more childlike play into our lives. I think it's great advice: play is good for our spirits, our bodies, and our minds. It teaches us, both dogs and humans, to coordinate our efforts with others, to learn to inhibit ourselves even when excited, and to share the ball eve.. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| e9d7015 | Ideally play is joyful and childlike, a physically and psychologically healthy exercise for both people and dogs. Psychologists and spiritual counselors advise us all to put more childlike play into our lives. I think it's great advice: play is good for our spirits, our bodies, and our minds. It teaches us, both dogs and humans, to coordinate our efforts with others, to learn to inhibit ourselves even when excited, and to share the ball eve.. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 0f53ea4 | up and down like | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 5869be3 | This tendency to continue exuberant play into adulthood is one of the factors that leads most scientists to consider dogs and humans as "paedomorphic," | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 73abd92 | This tendency has led to the suggestion that humans are paedomorphic primates. It's not necessarily a new hypothesis--a man named John Fiske made the argument as early as 1884--but it continues to be a reasonable one. There's more than just our playful nature that suggests eternal youth has played a role in our evolution. One of the defining characteristics of humans is our creativity, our willingness to try new things and new ways of inter.. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 9e43628 | DO THIS, INSTEAD!) SPECIAL TOPICS HOW TO STOP UNWANTED BEHAVIOR Inevitably, at some point | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| 7ef3028 | We humans are in such a strange position--we are still animals whose behavior reflects that of our ancestors, yet we are unique--unlike any other animal on earth. Our distinctiveness separates us and makes it easy to forget where we came from. Perhaps dogs help us remember the depth of our roots, reminding us--the animals at the other end of the leash--that we may be special, but we are not alone. No wonder we call them our best friends. | Patricia B. McConnell | ||
| ab55987 | We are hardwired to remember negative events over positive ones, so we ruminate on our mistakes and the slights of others. Our ability to use language means that we can spend hours mentally criticizing what we did in the past or worrying about what we'll do in the future. No wonder we love dogs, who don't need meditation retreats to get over the shame of getting into the garbage last Thursday. | Patricia B. McConnell |