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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“We listen too much to the telephone and we listen too little to nature. The wind is one of my sounds. A lonely sound, perhaps, but soothing. Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for-sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive, or quiet and calm... As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds of them all-and to me it is a sound-is utter, complete silence.”

“We listened to Daddy when he said: "when all you got goin' for you is cuteness and then you get bags under your eyes, they forget about you and get someone younger. When all you can do is play basketball and you break your knee, they forget about you and give your place to someone else. But when what you got goin' for you is inside your head, that's something nobody can take away from you. Nobody. Ever. 'Cept by killin' you, and then it don't matter no more 'cause you're dead.”

“We lit candles. Hema fell to her knees, the flame throwing a flickering light on her face. Her lips moved. She believed in every kind of deity, and in reincarnation and resurrection–she knew no contradictions in these areas. How I admired her faith, her lack of self-consciousness—a Hindu lighting candles to a Carmelite nun in a Catholic church. I knelt, too. I addressed God and sister Mary Joseph Praise and Shiva and Ghosh—all the beings I carried with me in the flesh and in spirit. Thank you for letting me be alive, letting me see this marble dream. I felt a great peace, a sense that coming to this spot had completed the circuit, and now a blocked current would flow and I could rest. If ecstasy meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me”

“We live a life bounded by the perception of the self. Existence entails tabulating our personal contact with reality and plumbing the substance of the self. The loftiest task of all is to dream a worthy life and then go live it without fearing the unknown. It is wonderful to live; we must cherish our time by loving other people and adoring nature. We find ourselves through trial and error. We must not allow failure, pain, disappointment, heartache, or sour feelings to daunt us because each of these emotional indexes interprets our dream world intermixing with reality.”

“We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe . . . taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, . . . and eating bran flakes . .. and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust.”

“We live a world of greatness and a time of despair. We live in a global village, yet how many people can we truly call “my friend?” Similarly, in our topsy-turvy postmodern world, we may have sex with strangers yet not know the names of our neighbors! We sacrifice intimacy and friendship for fleeting “hook-ups.” We desire physical release and satisfaction without any mental, emotional, or spiritual connection. Instead of whole connectedness, we may consider sex as merely a fleeting and momentary physical release. This is reflective of much in postmodernism. We are drawn to the fleeting over the foundational, to instant gratification over long-term obligations, to self-satisfaction ahead of meeting the needs of others. We want, expect, and desire our wants and needs to be met (often instantly) while often feeling no obligation to respond in kind.”

“We live amid falling taboos. In our crowded little hour of history we have seen how the prejudice of religion no longer can bar the way to the White House. Some of you may live to see the day when the prejudice of sex no longer places the Presidency beyond the reach of a greatly gifted American lady. Long before them, I hope you will see a woman member of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Congress and in our State Legislatures we need more women to bring their sensitive experience to the shaping of our decisions.”

“We live and breathe words. .... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt-I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted-and then I realized that truly I just wanted you”

“We live and enjoy the vitality (virya) of consciousness to the degree in which we are sensitive to the beauty of things around us. Each aesthetic experience, had with mindfulness and a disciplined intention directed towards heightening our general level of aesthetic sensitivity, brings us a little closer to the sustained wonder of the pulsation (spanda) of consciousness which permeates all experience.”