In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.
We place such crazy importance on physical appearance in our image-obsessed culture, on youth and beauty to define our sense of self-worth, that aging, by default, becomes a kind of defect, something secret and corrosive and shameful.
By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame.
We’re by-products of the mid-twentieth century”, Oliver said. “Who isn’t?
Patience was part of his nature, and he accepted his lot as a short-lived mammal, scurrying in and out amid the roots of the giants.
Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.
There’s so much to write. Where should I start?I texted my old Jiko this question, and she wrote me back this:’You should start where you are
An unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again.
For the time beingWords scatterAre they fallen leaves?
As I bathe myselfI pray with all beingsthat we can purify body and mindand clean ourselves inside and out.
Zazen is better than a home. Zazen is a home that you can’t ever lose.
How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?
I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.
The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist ? It feels like it exists, but where is it ? And if it did exists, but doesn’t now, then where did it go ?
How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal farther?
You got a choice, dude. We’ve all got choices. Lots of them. Every single second of the day we’re making choices. You’ve just been making bad ones, is all.
When you beat a drum, you create NOW, when silence becomes a sound so enormous and alive it feels like you’re breathing in the clouds and the sky, and your heart is the rain and the thunder.
You never know who it’s going to be, or what they’ll bring, but whatever it is, it’s always exactly what is needed.
Once in a while a story is spectacular enough to break through and attract media attention, but the swell quickly subsides into the general glut of bad news over which we, as citizens, have so little control.
Maketa,” I said, throwing myself down in the sand. “I lost. The ocean won.”She smiled. “Was it a good feeling?”“Mm,” I said.“That’s good,” she said. “Have another rice ball?
Information is a lot like water; it’s hard to hold on to, and hard to keep from leaking away.
Ruth was a novelist, and novelists, Oliver asserted, should have cats and books.
Fiction is an elemental force, which has the power to shape reality in its own image – or images, I should say – because reality, like light, exists not only as a single point or particle, but also as an array of possibilities.