So you're an angel, fine, that's terrific. Now give me back my shadows. (Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel)
The woman I loved died because I did not love her enough - what greater sin is there than that?" (Uncle Chaim and Aunt Fifke and the Angel)
We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours.
You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.
...trying to be a good mother may be as distant from being a good mother as trying to have a good time is from truly having one.
Although the infertile are entitled to sour grapes, it's against the rules, isn't it, to actually have a baby and spend any time at all on that banished parallel life in which you didn't.
But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were all about following the rules.
You do not say, “This is enlightenment,” or “That is not right practice.” Even in wrong practice, when you realize it and continue, there is right practice.
Our way is not to sit to acquire something; it is to express our true nature. That is our practice.
Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
Scream at the mangled leather carcass lying at the foot of the stairs, and my parents would roar with laughter. "That's what you get for leaving your wallet on the kitchen table.
I hate you' she said to me one afternoon. 'I really, really hate you.' Call me sensitive, but I couldn't help but take it personally.
People always say there's no such thing as bad publicity, and you always think they're right, because it seems self-evident: nobody's going to buy a magazine that nobody ever talks about, so people should want to buy a magazine that everybody's talki...
I have met some very strange people and some very strange cats - and I'm not talking about jazz greats. I'm talking about animals that people claim have come from outer space, and boy, they're weird!
On the other hand I have seen several, several top targets for these investigations of these terrorist activities that were allowed to leave the country - I'm not talking about weeks, I'm talking about months after 9/11.
Some story appears in some newspaper that says that somebody said X, Y, and Z, and a customer says, I don't understand what they're talking about - we're running that product, we've been using it for five years, what are they talking about?
The things I talk about and explain couldn't happen - yet, they don't seem impossible - you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane - and it's trying to pass itself off as being a sane plac...
Talking about abstract things is important. Having big, wild conversations about concepts like art, music, time travel, and dreams makes it much easier when you’ll eventually need to talk about things like anger, sadness, pain, and love.
I remember my first scene with Alan Rickman, and I was anxious because he is a slight 'method' actor; as soon as he is in his cloak, he walks and talks like Snape - it is quite terrifying. But I really wanted to talk to him because 'Robin Hood' was o...
It's very important for the parents of young autistic children to encourage them to talk, or for those that don't talk, to give them a way of communicating, like a picture board, where they can point to a glass of milk, or a jacket if they're cold, o...
A lot of healing is in the mind. I'm not talking about serious illnesses like cancer. I'm talking about ordinary broken bones. Healing begins in the head. You have to convince yourself you can do it.
