“We give thanks for our friends.
Our dear friends.
We anger each other.
We share this sad earth, this tender life, this precious time.
Such richness. Such wildness.
Together we are blown about.
Together we are dragged along.
All this delight.
All this suffering.
All this forgiving life.
We hold it together.
Amen. ”
– Michael Leunig.
“Once we accept that we are going to lose something, something new comes along. That is the way bereavement works. This is reality, not consolation; but we forget that.”
– Marie de Hennezel, in her book, “The warmth of the heart prevents your body from rusting”.
“There are two things you need in order to live and cope well in spite of all of Life’s adversities: gratitude and resilience.”
– Glenda’s Dictum.
“There is nothing that concentrates the mind like the prospect of death”.
– Samuel Johnson.
“Our memories make us who we are…
Choose one moment in every day that is worth cherishing, welcome that moment into your Memory Palace, nurture it always, and it will never leave you”.
– said by the character “Grandpa Byron” in Ross Welford’s Time Travelling with a Hamster.
“God help us to change. To change ourselves and to change our world. To know the need for it. To deal with the pain of it. To feel the joy of it. To undertake the journey without understanding the destination. The art of gentle revolution.”
– Michael Leunig.
“We were talking about painful things, and yet I think both of us felt unaccountably happy. Easily cheered. This sharing, this acknowledgement of what it is to be human – this was the faint light of hope from the edge of melancholy.”
Dani Shapiro: Devotion
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“What undramatic lives we lead, most of us. We get up, we eat, we work, we play, we go to bed, and in the morning we get up again. Sometimes we are not very well, sometimes we are not very lucky. We make more money today than yesterday, or yesterday than today; we are annoyed, amused, flattered, offended, happy, unhappy. That is all. We experience how few of the big emotions, how few of the big events. We do not even die until it is too late to be aware of it.
We do well enough without the big emotions. The big emotions are generally uncomfortable, and it is fitting that they should be reserved for others. For we cannot get rid of the idea that there is a Special Providence looking after us, a Providence much more interested, much more careful, than the one which is looking after our neighbour. Others may be run over as they cross the crowded street; that would not surprise us. But it is incredible that it could happen to ourselves. Our first emotion would not be fear, but amazement. Surely a mistake has been made!”
– A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh, in his adult novel, Mr Pim Passes By).
Robin Prag Psychology 