Quotessence
Home / Books / A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

Book by Gretel Ehrlich · 16 quotes · Sea, Doctors, Nature

Filter quotes by topic

AllSeaDoctorsNatureOceanBlackFogHealingHospitalsIfsKnownMindNightOddRunningAbilityActivityApronsArrivingArtAttainment

A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning Quotes

“A black-crowned night heron stood on an apron of wet sand, looking across the channel. The feather plume at the back of his head lifted in a faint breeze. Out there the channel churned its cyclonic eddies counterclockwise. Schools of anchovies, halibut, and sea bass came and went: silver flashes, small storms that well up from the inside of the sea but are short-lived, like lightning.”

WellsSchoolNightBlackSeaOceanStormSandSilverWetFlashLightningBreezeFeathersBassShort LivedApronsHeronsHalibut
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“All that's known is this: there is no central processor, no single computer. Nothing that simple. Millions of neurons process information simultaneously and in parallel, not linearly, but the actual chemistry and electrical properties of that integrative process are still being mapped. Even so, it seems odd that during the evolution of brain circuitry and thinking, the ability to understand itself did not get wired in. Such built-in innocence seems like a terrible oversight.”

ThinkingMindStillsSeemsProcessSimpleAbilityBrainKnownMillionsInformationEvolutionTerribleComputerBuiltPropertyInnocenceOddChemistryParallelsElectricalNeuronsOversightProcessors
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“Fog rolled in like a form of sorrow. To live exiled from a place you have known intimately is to experience sensory deprivation. A wide-awake coma. ... The sea was a memory bank into which everything fell and was lost. I dove in but came out empty-handed.”

FormLostMemoriesKnownSeaSorrowOceanEmptyWideAwakeFogExileDoveSensoryDeprivationComaWide AwakeSensory Deprivation
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“Thirty years ago, my sister, Gale (so named because a gale hit Boston Harbor the night she was born), some friends and I stole a boat in the middle of the night and sailed it out of the Santa Barbara harbor. Suddenly we were becalmed and the current began pushing us toward the breakwall. With no running lights and no power, we were dead in the water. Out of that darkness a steel hull appeared: it was the local Coast Guard cutter. My father, stern-faced and displeased, stood in the bow.”

YearsLightRunningNightFatherWaterBornDarknessMiddleYears AgoCurrentsLocalsBoatThirtyPushingMy SisterBowsSteelCoastBostonSantaHarborsThirty YearsMiddle Of The NightGaleBarbaraCuttersHullSanta BarbaraCoast Guard
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“I designed furniture that pulled apart, folded, and broke down into neat stacks. Since arriving in California, I had moved four times and it looked as if I would move again. Was it the land running under my feet or my feet running over the land?”

IfsRunningMovingFourFeetLandMovedBrokeCaliforniaFurnitureNeatArriving
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“Survival is as much a matter of grace as fight. The expression, 'grace under pressure' implies the attainment of equanimity and equilibrium. The fundamental durability of the human body surprises us because the pain can be so intense - yet pain is often transient and hides the tremendous effforts the body is engaged in to heal itself.”

HumansMatterBodyPainFightingGraceExpressionSurvivalPressureFundamentalsSurpriseHealIntenseEngagedHuman BodyAttainmentEquilibriumTransientEquanimityUnder PressureDurabilityGrace Under PressureHeal Itself
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“How odd it is that sewing is thought to be 'women's work' when surgeons, sailors, and cowboys sew too. Yet how many female thoracic surgeons are there? And if precision motor activities are thought to be performed better by women, why wouldn't they make better surgeons too?”

IfsActivityFemaleOddCowboyMotorSailorSurgeonsPrecisionSewing
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“It was spring, and while my new house was cramped and humble, it was on the sand and the ocean still came to the front door. At dawn I'd roll out of bed, not even bothering to change clothes, and walk. Squalls came and went. Storm surges carried huge swells into the cove, and as rain inebriated the coast, the thick stub of a rainbow pushed out of the sea like a green thumb on the horizon. After, the dark blue sheet of water turned metallic, and I wondered: What in nature is not a mirror, does not give back a true image of mind?”

MindNatureMeditationSeaRainbow
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“That's why I spend so much time on what we call attitude, which, when you look at it, is really a complex, mind-body phenomonen. I really don't believe in medical miracles. People should give themselves more credit for their healing abilities. A doctor participates in the process , that's all. One of the best things a doctor can do is encourage a tough, fighting spirit and a sense of humor. Those people almost always do better than the others.”

HealingDoctorsMind Body Spirit
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image

“In the evenings the boat spun on its anchor and mist fell to its knees, raining directly into seawater. Trees grew on red buoys, bald eagles lifted out of dark trunks like white-steepled chapels, a raven ate a crab in the boat's crow's nest, and schools of herring, who sometimes migrate in rolled-up balls five or six inches thick, broad-jumped the incoming tide.”

NatureTidesNautical
Book:A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning
Create image