Miracle

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle.
Every prayer reduces itself to this:
Great God, grant that two and two be not four.
—Ivan Turgenev

Some people

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
—Virginia Woolf

Others

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A lot

You really shouldn't say "I love you" unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.
—Jessica, age 8  [12.21.01]

This moment

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
notes of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome
by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
—Jane Kenyon (Having it Out with Melancholy) [10.19.01]

Outgrown

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
—John O'Donohue

Stories

We all live in that world of images and stories, and most of us are damaged by some version of it, and if we're lucky, find others or make better ones that embrace and bless us.
—Rebecca Solnit

Myth

You are watching people go through withdrawal from the emotional addiction to the myth of certainty.
—Ashley C. Ford

Angry

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.
—Robinson Jeffers (1941)

Civilized

We have not civilized the world, we have materialized the world. Now we need to be civilized.
—Salim Ismail

Care

I hate language of "war." We cannot beat a virus in a war. This is a crisis of care. How do we care for each other, for those who need it most? How do you care for yourself? How should states, systems, businesses care? I don't care how we fight: I care how we care.
—Moraa

Wait

If you hate how dramatically fucked things feel right now, wait until I tell you about what's in store from global warming.
—Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Facts

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
—Abraham Lincoln [07.25.03]

Reality

One's reality doesn't simply shift in a pandemic; it becomes radically uncertain—indeed, uncertainty is the reality.
—Elizabeth Outka

Together

Coincidence. The word is often used to mean the accidental but literally means to fall together. The patterns of our lives come from those things that do not drift apart but move together for a little while, like dancers.
—Rebecca Solnit

Values

It's mind–blowing that anyone thinks we will democratically pass adequate climate policy without a revolution of values.
—Dr. Genevieve Guenther

Truthful

My point is that illness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness—and the healthiest way of being ill—is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking.
—Susan Sontag

Volcanic

The political possibilities of this moment are different than anything we have ever experienced. We possess a once in a lifetime opportunity to make the United States a more humane country. But if we fail to seize it, we will face mortal danger from the right. That's not hyperbole. The anger of Americans, once they figure out what's being done to them right now, is going to be volcanic.
--Jon Schwarz

Crime

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. ...In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
--John Steinbeck

Is

Silence is attention.
--Sallie Tisdale (Advice for Future Corpses)

Other Forces

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world besides the will of evil.
--J.R.R. Tolkien

Putin

All roads seem to lead to Putin with the president.
--Nancy Pelosi (October 2019)

Uncertainty

Looking deeper, we could say that the real cause of suffering is not being able to tolerate uncertainty--and thinking that it's perfectly sane, perfectly normal, to deny the fundamental groundlessness of being human.
--Pema Chodron

Gamble

To hope is to gamble. It's to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than doom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.
--Rebecca Solnit

Keep Going

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
--Rainer Maria Rilke