Commands

Time doesn't obey our commands. You cannot make it holy just because it is disappearing.
--Meghan O'Rourke

Nothingness

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.
--John Updike

Pretensions

What a civilization this is! Naive gentlemen with a genius for mechanics suddenly become the arbiters over the lives and fortunes of hundreds and thousands. Their moral pretensions are credulously accepted at full value.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Afterward

Many events plant seeds, imperceptible at the time, that bear fruit long afterward.
--Rebecca Solnit

Immigrant

As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.
--Pope Francis (September 23, 2015)

Soul

One can't write directly about the soul.
--Virginia Woolf

Silence

Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.
--Susan Sontag

Volunteers

At every moment, we are volunteers.
--Stephen Colbert

Selfie

Running for president is the new selfie.
--James Gleick

Goodness

It is essential that we be convinced of the goodness of human nature, and we must act as though people are good.
--John Cage

The Animal

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
--Henry Beston

City

I believe in the city. I have to. I live on a planet where the rise in urbanity requires all of us to master the multicultural beast that is the city.
--David Simon

Emergency

We have a slowing developing emergency, a possibility to use our skills and intelligence and humanity to grow into taking care of things. Or we can go on distracting ourselves with ever more marketing and consumption and all go together.
--Susan Anderson

Dare

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, recreated from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!"
--James Baldwin

Soul and Body

I am not one of those who neglect the body in order to make of it a sacrificial offering for the soul, since my soul would thoroughly dislike being served in such a fashion.
--Rainer Maria Rilke

Mets

The whole world likes the Yankees. But the real New Yorker likes the Mets.
--Jasmine Lee

Face To Face

The Machine is much, but it is not everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind.
--E. M. Forster

Opinion, Perspective

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
--Marcus Aurelius

Replaced

Object impermanence, the flow of time. Everything you see will be replaced.
--Rich Cohen

Sissy

You Christians are the biggest sissies of all. You have bullied, persecuted, demeaned, lied about and did everything in your power to destroy gay lives for decades. And now they're fighting back--not to hurt you but to gain their equal status as citizens. And you sissy Christians are all like, "No fair! You're hurting ME by not bending over and taking my assault! It's an attack! Now I have to bake a cake or issue a marriage license! I'm too weak for this. Whaa! Whaa!"
--James Gregory

Sentient Being

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
--Oliver Sacks