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Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

Book by Susan Cain · 25 quotes · Longing, Grief, Sorrow

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Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole Quotes

“When you went to your favorite concert and heard your favorite musician singing the body electric, that was it; when you met your love and gazed at each other with shining eyes, that was it; when you kissed your five-year-old good night and she turned to you solemnly and said, "Thank you for loving me so much," that was it: all of them facets of the same jewel.”

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“Yet the moonlight sonatas of the world don't simply discharge our emotions; they elevate them. Also, it's only sad music that elicits exalted states of communion and awe. Music conveying other negative emotions, such as fear and anger, produces no such effect. Even happy music produces fewer psychological rewards than sad music, concluded Sachs, Damasio, and Habibi. Upbeat tunes make us want to dance around our kitchens and invite friends for dinner. But it's sad music that makes us want to touch the sky.”

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“So many of us love tragic drama, rainy days, tearjerker movies. We adore cherry blossoms--we even hold festivals in their honor--preferring them to equally lovely flowers because they die young. (The Japanese, who love sakura flowers most of all, attribute this preference to mono no aware, which means a desired state of gentle sorrow brought about by "the pathos of things" and "a sensitivity to impermanence").”

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“Longing itself is divine," writes the Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. "Longing for worldly things makes you inert. Longing for Infinity fills you with life. The skill is to bear the pain of longing and move on. True longing brings up spurts of bliss." At the heart of all these traditions is this pain of separation, the longing for reunion, and occasionally, the transcendent achievement of it.”

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“We aren't responsible for the sins of our parents. And neither must we bear their pain. This doesn't mean turning our backs on our forebears. We can send our love back to them, across the centuries. But on their behalf and ours, we can follow the bittersweet tradition, and transform their troubles into something better.”

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“The young delude themselves that the music will never stop playing. So it makes sense for them to explore rather than savor; to meet new people rather than to devote time to their nearest and dearest; to learn new skills and soak up information, rather than to ponder the meaning of it all; to focus on the future rather than to remain in the present.”

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