life & hope

Nothing is ineluctable. 

Life has surprises. 

Life is absurd. 

Because it's absurd there is always hope.

Graham Greene

'The Honorary Consul'

www.freeyork.org

the universe

There were perhaps 

one hundred billion galaxies in the universe, 

and each galaxy contained a hundred billion stars. 

How many of those stars had planets, 

and how many planets had life?

(...)

The belief 

that there was life only on this pale blue dot, 

in this insignificant solar system, now seemed 

as absurd as the ancients' naive belief that 

the sun and the stars revolved around the earth.

Tess Gerritsen

'Gravity'

www.picstopin.com

universal question

What sets the human race apart from the beasts is 

man's hunger for knowledge. 

Every child asks the universal question: 

Why? 

They are programmed from birth to be curious, 

to be explorers, 

to seek scientific truths.

Tess Gerritsen

'Gravity'

www.favim.com

being quiet

Sometimes people lie

just by being quiet.

Stephen King

'The Dark Half'

www.turkeytravelresource.com

in hell

 If you hurt people, if you know you’re hurting them, you go to Hell,’ Ingrid said. 

‘In Hell you have to watch the people you hurt, the ones who are still alive. 

If two people you hurt ever get together, 
you have to watch everything they do very closely.
But you can’t hear them. Everyone in Hell is deaf. 

You just have to watch the people you hurt without knowing 
what they’re talking about. 

Of course, Hell being Hell, 

you think they’re talking about you.

John Irving

'Until I find You'

www.fineartamerica.com

that lie

There's always a price you pay when you lie. 

Once you introduce a lie into a relationship, 
even for the best of intentions, it is always there. 
Whenever you’re with that person again, that lie is in the room too. 

It sits on your shoulder. 

Good lie or bad lie, it's in the room with you forever now. 

It's your constant companion.

Harlan Coben

'Seconds Away'

www.asbarez.com

grief

Ain't no shame in holdin' on to grief, 

as long as you make room for other things too.

The Wire

season 5, episode 9 

(Bubbles)

www.publishedauthors.org

the attempt

I really believe that if there's any kind of god,

he wouldn't be in any one of us - not you, not me

but just in the space in between.

If there's some magic in this world, 

it must be in the attempt of understanding someone else,

sharing something.

Even if it's almost impossible to succeed,

but who cares,

the answer must be 

in the attempt.

Before Sunrise

director: Richard Linklater

www.myspace.com

final decisions

Life forces enough final decisions on us (...)

We should have the sense to avoid

as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.

John Irving

'Until I Find You'

www.blackulalume.files.wordpress.com

coincidence

Either there are no coincidences in this town, 

or everything in this town

 is a coincidence.

John Irving

'Until I Find You'

www.thebookwormhole.blogspot.com.au

heaven or hell

Listen: it’s got to be all honeymoon, always.

 Either heaven, or hell: 

no comfortable safe peaceful purgatory between 

for you and me to wait in until good behavior or forbearance 

or shame or repentance overtakes us.

William Faulkner 

 'The Wild Palms'

www.danhinz.org

happiness

I remember one morning getting up at dawn...

there was such a sense of possibility...

and I remember thinking to myself,

'This is the beginning of happiness,

this is where it starts and of course

there will always be more.'

It never occurred to me

it wasn't the beginning,

it was happiness.

The Hours 

director: Stephen Daldry

www.moonstruckin.blogspot.co.uk

good things

We have a tendency to believe good things will last forever.

It is in our nature.

The Beatles, for example. Oh, they'll be around forever. The Sopranos - that show will always be on the air.

Philip Roth's Zuckerman series. Springsteen concerts. 

Good things are rare.

They're to be cherished because they always leave us too soon.

Harlan Coben

'Live Wire'

www.pxleyes.com

the beginning

We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments.

Henry Miller

'Fragments of Thought' - Filomena de Andrade Booth