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Connection Quotes

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Connection Quotes

“The quiet ones, the introverts, are uniquely gifted. We have tremendous patience and empathy. We don’t need to say much, yet we’re able to build deep connections and rapport with those around us. The act of displaying Quiet Confidence is much easier to cultivate than we think. It’s built-in, a bundled accessory, we simply have to activate it!”

“For the merest moment I couldn't breathe. Something inside me quivered, some oud string plucked by his words, and if I breathed it would stop. He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertiginous moment, made me want to be better than I was.”

“Sex is a metaphor for everything else and everything is a metaphor for sex as well. Because sex is a coming together of two weather patterns, two separate countries, two entities in a conscious state of potentially blissful crisis. Or chaos, or harmony. You’re not quite sure what’s going to happen, but it is the most catastrophic, exciting, and weakening thing that can happen to us. If we are personally involved in it, every fiber of our being is made self-conscious, or is encourages to unify on some level with others. We are delicate. We bring our damage to sexuality, we bring our hopes, we bring our self-image, we bring our world-image, we bring what we believe we are/what we believe we aren’t, our blind spots, our prejudices, our sadness. Everything comes out. A lot of people are left wanting, and confusing, and having the idea that their body is like an unloved apartment building; it’s up for grabs and it’s of absolutely no worth. If we feel that way about ourselves and if we feel that way about others, then of course, sex is nothing more than a lot of rubbing and some kind of release. But the more we are, the more we can feel, the more we can empathize, the more human we are.”

“We are in this together. None of us truly walk in isolation, even when we cannot sense the presence of another for miles upon miles. Even in the worst of our desolation. Even during our coldest 3am breakdown. Even when we shut out the world and spin in circles until we collapse. Even then the light still gets in. Even then the heart still opens and reaches, tendrils of hope curling and bending toward slivers of light. Upward, outward, in all directions – seeking light at all cost. One way or another, we all grow toward the light.”

“The internet and online communication is the window into your world - but real life, in person communication / connection is the door.”

“And so I learned that there were *the others*, the element surrounding me was filled with traces of them, *others* hostile and different from me or else disgustingly similar. No, now I'm giving you a disagreeable idea of my character, which is all wrong. Naturally, each of us went about on his own business, but the presence of the *others* reassured me, created an inhabited zone around me, freed me from the fear of being an alarming exception, which I would have been if the fact of existing had been my fate alone, a kind of exile.”

“It's a funny thing about being alone. You never really notice it when it's happening. You're aware that nobody else is there, but [...] as with wading into cold water, you acclimate to the relative solitude until it doesn't even bother you anymore. You don't realize that your hands and toes have grown numb until there is a sudden burst of warmth that sends needles through your extremities.”

“And so I will try and write a book of my own, inch by inch, that might reach beyond my narrow self and add to the ration of courage that stories are for us all. To share this learning I have, which was only accidental at first: that more of us might find more and many little ways to step out from our circles of safe belonging, to show and share what we know, and surprise interest from others who encounter us. To be people who simply sit on park benches, open and noticing, so that a lonely person might feel able to risk a smile, then take a seat and speak. To spend even a few of our spare hours in this way, being calling cards and quiet invitations.”

“Piece of cake," she said. "Your mother's just lonely." I was dumbfounded. Malabar had dinner parties almost every weekend; she had been juggling two men for years. "My mother's not lonely," I said. "You're wrong," said Kyra. "Loneliness is not about how many people you have around. It's about whether or not you feel connected. Whether or not you're able to be yourself." I was at a loss for words. Was Malabar not being herself when she was being Malabar? "You know what I mean," Kyra said, breaking it down for me. "The lonely feeling comes from not being known.”

“May the light that reflects on water be this wild prayer. May water lift us with its unexpected strength. May we find comfort in the "repeated refrains of nature," the softly sheltering snow, the changing seasons, the return of blackbirds to the marsh. May we find strength in light that pours in under snow and laughter that breaks through tears. May we go out into the light-filled snow, among meadows in bloom, with gratitude for life that is deep and alive. May Earth's fire burn in our hearts, and may we know ourselves part of this flame--one thing, never alone, never weary of life. So may it be. "Never Alone or Weary”

“Homer looked back at me. 'Pete, can I tell ya somethin' real important?' 'Sure, what is it?' I couldn't imagine what Homer was about to say. He sat down on a rounded rock. I sat down too. 'One thing I've learned is that ya never know what's gonna happen to ya in this old life. Everything can change, just like that.' He snapped his fingers, loud and fast. 'You never know what might happen to ya and that dawg ah yers. Ya know what you should do? You ought to settle down here ... On my mountain.' His words were coming quickly and eagerly. 'I'll teach ya all the ways of livin' up here, and someday when ya get a place built, you can have yerself a family.' Homer wasn't kidding me. 'And, besides, ya know I ain't gonna be here forever. When I leave, then you can take care of this place for me. You understand more than anyone why I love this place so much. I know ya wouldn't let them lumbermen and hunters come up here and hurt my place.' There was a shell around Homer and reaching his heart was like breaking a granite boulder with your bare hands. But now, Homer's heart was breaking. After he finished he turned away from me. When he turned back, his questioning eyes were teary. 'Homer, what you just said was beautiful.' I looked down at my boots and rolled a rock back and forth under my heel. 'But, I don't know. I'll have to give it some serious thought, okay?' As quickly as Homer had broken his stride and opened himself up, he was fast on his feet walking back up the mountain. He stayed as quiet as the king trees that he loved so much, never again saying a word to me about his amazing invitation.”

“I used to dream about meeting him. Barry Allen. The Flash. I’d write little stories in my head about the connection we’d share. That he would see how alike we were and then the Flash would know how much he meant to me and feel the same. It’s a shame, but I doubt that I’ll ever meet the Flash to tell him how I feel. That even though I had no one in my life, his sense of hope was a light in the darkness of the future. And as long as I had that… I was never alone.”

“A man needs understanding because he is existentially alone. He stares into the darkness. That was the difference between men and women, Leo thought. Men need groups and gangs and sport and clubs and institutions and women because men know that there is only nothingness and self-doubt. Women were always trying to make a connection, build a relationship. As though one human being could know another.”

“Beauty promises recognition, connection, and loftiness. It invites us to soar and transcend. Beauty lends magnitude to our lives, but we feel dislocated if we miss sense and substance. Its absence is like a fall from grace. Beauty is one of the last refuges against emptiness. Without it, we become void drifters in a barren world. (“Absence of Beauty is like Hell“ )”

“We have a collection of 800 jars of soil in our museum. We collect these soils from lynching sites. People who are involved in erecting markers collect the soil, put it in a jar that has the name of the victim, the date of the victim, and then they bring it back to the museum. An older Black woman was digging soil at a site in west Alabama. She was afraid because it was on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. As she was about to dig, a big white man in a pickup truck drove by and stared at her. It made her anxious. Then he drove by again and stared some more. Then he parked his truck, got out, and walked toward her. She was terrified. Then the man asked, "What are you doing?" She was going to tell him that she was just getting dirt for her garden. Then she said, "Mr. Stevenson, something got ahold of me. I told that man, I'm digging soil here because this is where a Black man was lynched in 1937." She just looked down and started digging. The man surprised her by asking, "Does that memo you have talk about the lynching?" She said, "It does." Then he asked, "Can I read it?" He started reading while she started digging. After he finished reading the memo, he said, "Would it be all right if I helped you?" She said, "Yes." The man got down on his knees, and she offered him the implement to dig the soil. He said, "No, no, no, no, no, you keep that. I'll just use my hands." She said he started picking up the soil and putting it in the jar, and throwing his hand into the soil. She said there was something about the conviction with which he was putting his whole body into this that moved her. She went from fear to relief to joy so quickly she couldn't help it. Tears were running down her face. The man turned to her and he said, "Oh, ma'am, I'm so sorry I'm upsetting you." She said, "No, no, no. You're blessing me." They kept digging, and they were getting near to filling the jar. She looked over at the man, and she noticed that he had slowed down. His face had turned red. Then she saw that there was a tear running down his face. She reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. She said, "Are you all right?" That's when the man turned her, and he said, "No, ma'am." He said, "I'm just so worried that it might have been my grandfather who helped lynch this man." She said they both sat on that roadside and wept. She said, I'm going to go back and put this jar of soil in the museum in Montgomery. Then the man said, "Ma'am, would it be all right if I just followed you back?" She said, "Sure." She called me on the way back. She said, "Mr. Stevenson, I want you to come to the museum and meet my new friend." I was there when these two people who met on a roadside in a place of pain and agony and violence and bigotry came in and together did something beautiful by putting that jar of soil in that exhibit. I'm not naive. I don't believe that beautiful things like that always happen when we tell the truth. I do believe that we deny ourselves the beauty of justice when we refuse to tell the truth. I've seen too much beauty come out of truth-telling, too much restoration, too much redemption, to believe that truth-telling doesn't have a power that is greater than the fear and anger that is prompting these orders, prompting some of this retreat. I worry about people who are already surrendering and waving white flags, and running for cover. I just don't think that's the way we're going to get to the other side.”

“This isn't a journey of you becoming the perfect version of yourself; that's what cults are built on. This is the journey about receiving the gift of yourself - the beautiful, vulnerable you... that you're the kind of person who is relatable, touchable, and in solidarity with others on the journey of life.”

“Everything on this earth is connected!" my father exclaimed. "A better religion, to me, is the practice of noticing that connection, of deepening our understanding of it." In Christianity, there was no need for microscopes or space shuttles or radiocarbon dating. Questions were frowned upon. Everything was already decided. "And that is absolutely maddening," my father said. "If that's the case, why live?”

“The Sabians were allowed to build a new Temple of the Moon God, and to continue their religious rites, after the Arab General Ibn Ghanam conquered Harran in the seventh century AD. This in itself is a sign of most unusual favor, since Islamic armies normally offered "pagans" the choice of either conversion or death. Even more interesting, however, is the Sabians' encounter with the Abbasid Caliph Abu Jafar Abdullah al-Ma'mun, who passed through their city in AD 830 and reportedly quizzed them intensively on their religion. Remembering the Sabian pilgrimages to Giza, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is any connection with the fact that in AD 820, a decade before he visited Harran, it was Ma'mun who tunnelled into the Great Pyramid and opened its previously hidden passageways and chambers. Indeed, it is through "Ma'mun's Hole" that visitors still enter the monument today. Described by Gibbon as "a prince of rare learning," it seems Ma'mun's investigation was prompted by information he'd received about the Great Pyramid, specifically that it contained: 'a secret chamber with maps and tables of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. Although they were said to have been made in the remote past, they were suppposed to be of great accuracy.”

“Real connection (and if it's LOVE, then real love)--goes beyond those not-so-perfect and superficial and idiosyncratic things that simply make us individuals. The trust and longevity of a relationship between two individuals is established through time and learning each other, and discovering a harmony at the core of their connection. And it becomes powerful because of where it resides--at the center of who we are--the very essence of our being.”

“Matters of the heart were important, but people tended to put too much stock in the particular organ when, in retrospect, it was only tissue. It pumped blood and the body couldn’t live without it, sure, but it had no actual bearing on love. The soul was what made a person distinct—the part that lived on after death, how one being connected to another, and what bound essence.”