Today I’m sharing some quotes that resonated with me when I read the book, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” by Gail Caldwell. This is a book I recommend to anyone. In fact, I think it’s time I reread it myself.
On Being a writer:
“If writers possess a common temperament, it’s that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave.”
“…not without reason did an old friend refer to me as the gregarious hermit. I wanted the warmth of spontaneous connection and the freedom to be left alone.”
Insight about Relationships:
“It took me years to grasp that this grit and discomfort in any relationship are an indicator of closeness, not its opposite….we had great power to hurt each other, and because we acknowledged this weapon we tried never to use it.”
“dying doesn’t end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur and epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another’s lives until not death, but distance, does us part – time and space and the heart’s weariness are the blander executioners of human connection.”
The Real Reality:
“…the world as we see it is only the published version. The subterranean realms, whether churches or hospital rooms or smoke-filled basements, are part of what hold up the rest.”
About Dying:
“Suffering witnessed is a cloudy and impotent world: The well, armed with consciousness, watch a scene they cannot really grasp or do much to alter. Suffering is what changes the endgame, changes death’s mantle from black to white. It is a badly lit corridor outside of time, a place of crushing weariness, the only thing large enough to bully you into holding the door for death.”
Enduring Loss:
“Caroline’s death was a vacancy in the heart, a place I neither could nor wished to fill.”
“like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.”
Related articles you might want to look into:
- “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” – A Review (bahiaportfolio.wordpress.com)
- Be a starfish: why just telling your body to regenerate may not be crazy (hb2cents.wordpress.com)
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