the grace of God

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

- 1 Corinthians 15:10

the curse of Sisyphus

I fear as I always had, that all that was ever meant was loneliness, hard work, striving to make a difference when no difference could possibly be made.

- Rowan Mayfair in Taltos by Anne Rice

heart and stone

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; you are manifestly an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

- 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

the anatomy of pain

Pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, you just breath deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn't let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can't outrun it and life always makes more.

- Meredith Grey in Grey's Anatomy

memory versus recollection

One may be born with the potential for a prodigious memory, but one is not born with a disposition to recollect; this comes only with changes and separations in life – separations from people, from places, from events and situations, especially if they have been of great significance, have been deeply hated or loved...

Discontinuity and nostalgia are most profound if, in growing up, we leave or lose the place where we were born and spent our childhood, if we become expatriates or exiles, if the place, or the life, we were brought up in is changed beyond recognition or destroyed.

- An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks

here and now

If friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we have finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our brotherhood. Overcome space, and all we have left is here. Overcome time, and all we have left is now. And in the middle of here and now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?

- Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

the way of all flesh

Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with Thee, and Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass...

- Job 14:5