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Granted Quotes

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Granted Quotes

“The human ego is the ugliest part of man. We lift up men who only show us darkness, and put down those brave enough to show us the light. Likewise, people engage in darkness when it is light outside, and acknowledge the light only when it is dark. We abandon those fighting for us to cheer behind those fighting against us. And, we only remember good people and God when it is convenient for us, and take them for granted because their doors are always open - only to chase after closed doors and personalities void of substance and truth.”

“Apology I didn't mean to say so much to you. I should have thought to let the evening end by looking at the stars subdued into their antique blue and alabaster hues. Such looking would have fit with my intent. I didn't mean to speak that way to you. If I could take it back, I'd take it, undo it, and replace it with the things I meant to give—not what I let slip (it's true) like any pristine star of ornamental hue. I do not always do what I intend. I didn't mean to say so much to you. It slipped before I saw, before I knew. Or do we always do what we intend? Perhaps it's true and all along I knew what I was saying—but how I wanted you. I should have thought to let the evening end. The placid stars seemed filled and then subdued by what I did and did not want to do.”

“Via Negativa Sometimes it's too hard with words or dark or silence. Tonight I want a prayer of high-rouged cheekbones and light: a litany of back-lit figures, lithe and slim, draped in fabrics soft and wrinkleless and pale as onion slivers. Figures that won't stumble or cough: sleek kid-gloved Astaires who'll lift ladies with glamorous sweeps in their hair— They'll bubble and glitter like champagne. They'll whisper and lean and waltz and wink effortlessly as figurines twirling in music boxes, as skaters in their dreams. And the prayer will not be crowded. You'll hear each click of staccato heel echo through the glassy ballrooms—too few shimmering skirts; the prayer will seem to ache for more. But the prayer will not ache. When we enter, its chandeliers and skies will blush with pleasure. Inside we will be weightless, and our goodness will not matter in a prayer so light, so empty it will float.”

“Approaching Elegy It's hard to believe you are dying: like looking at a Jamesian scene, skipping past happiness to a garden bench beyond the trees. You fill the form of heroine: you sit in your black dress, too tired to imagine the rest of yourself. An old suitor appears, grabs you possibly too forcefully by the wrists (he is still impossibly in love—). You disengage your wrists. He leans forward, looks into your eyes, which you close—as if you were all by yourself. He moves closer, talking very fast about happiness. He places his cloak on your shoulders, imagines he'll rescue you. Around you, forms grow darker: house, branch, hydrangea. Above you, freckled expanses of leaves form the beginnings of barbed, lopsided shrouds—a possible solace. If only his kiss could please you, I wouldn't need to imagine past the clean architecture of the story. And perhaps it is wrong to look past that. Wrong to ask about happiness. Past midnight, he continues to offer himself. Before, he had offered aimless passion, but now (you see it for yourself) he has an idea: he points into the darkness. He is grave, formal. The dark has swallowed the long shadows of the oaks (though not your unhappiness) —and it is about to swallow you. Soon, it will no longer be possible (there is just one more page to turn) for me to look through your eyes, so I would like to imagine for you: something past tragedy. Just as I would like to imagine that we are not in danger, that we have selves more solid than stars, that we are safe in the pages of books we can reopen to look at each other. Except that we are not women formed of words, but of impossible longings. What was it that you wanted besides happiness? You are dying. I have no ideas about happiness and no patience to imagine it possible. Soon you will not be the heroine; you will not be yourself. And it's not that you've lost the formula; your form is losing you. Look at how brave you are: I imagined the great point was to be happy, as happy as possible with the quick forms that imagine us—but the last time I looked there you were—distant and bright in the not so blue darkness, imagining yourself.”

“The Technique of the Lifelike I had imagined death thrillingly: my arms held behind to restrain their frivolous occasions, the whole of me bending like a tall yellow lily before you. Yet set see how my hands go on with their thoughts. See how I fold and fold my handkerchief. I am not a great lady. I don't swoon with love. My stricken, I cannot render you as you move quickly toward your skillful execution, your shoulders tossing their indifference to the dark, your face overlaid with stage effects. You grow irresistibly small. Your hands and feet expire. This is where sculpture also fails, this is where I turn wholly unattached and without debt. What is the use of crowning you in glory? Now my fingers make bowls for rain: in your honor: hope for nothing. We knew our disposition long ago.”

“Fasting in each of the senses, strengthens the grip of life. After silence, each uttering as music. After hunger, each tasting, delicious. After smell, each flower, a heavenly scent. After darkness, each sunray, as meeting the angels. After winter, delicious heavenly scent of angelic music, warming of heart, elevation of soul. After great effort, blissful rest. Fast from heat, love, company, intimacy, curiosity. Fast in all things. Occasionally deprive yourself of life, and truly you will live. Let each machine in each factory have its rest and maintenance, for they will strengthen in efficiency. Recovery.”

“In all things and in all ways, choice impacts virtually every element of our life. It bears repeating that even those things which seem out of reach of our choice are governed by how we choose to perceive them.”

“He who has not yet attained divine knowledge energized by love is proud of his spiritual progress. But he who has been granted such knowledge repeats with deep conviction the words uttered by the patriarch Abraham when he was granted the manifestation of God: 'I am dust and ashes' (Gen. 18:27).”

“If... Adam had trusted in God and been nourished from the tree of life (Gn. 2:9)? he would not have set aside the immortality that had been granted. For such immortality is eternally preserved by participation in life, since all life is genuine and preserved by appropriate food. The food of that blessed life is 'the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world' (Jn. 6:33), just as the inerrant Word Himself declares about Himself in the Gospels.”

“... for our sake loosing within Himself the bonds of bodily birth, He granted us through spiritual birth, according to our own volition, power to become children of God instead of children of flesh and blood if we have faith in His Name (cf. Jn. 1:12-13). For the Savior the sequence was, first of all, incarnation and bodily birth for my sake; and so thereupon the birth in the Spirit through baptism, originally spurned by Adam, for the sake of my salvation and restoration by grace, or, to describe it even more vividly, my very remaking.”

“I think it's like that for people who don't remember 1969 first-hand. It's that sense of 'old hat.' Of 'been there, done that.' Space shuttles, space stations, communications satellites, GPS - they're all part of our everyday, taken-for-granted world in 2009, not part of an incredible odyssey.”