#distance

I’d felt this before, when my granddad was in the hospital before he died. We all camped out in the waiting room, eating our meals together, most of us sleeping in the chairs every night. Family from far-flung places would arrive at odd hours and we’d all stand and stretch, hug, get reacquainted, and pass the babies around. A faint, pale stream of beauty and joy flowed through the heavy sludge of fear and grief. It was kind of like those puddles of oil you see in parking lots that look ugly until the sun hits them and you see rainbows pulling together in the middle of the mess. And wasn’t that just how life usually felt—a confusing swirl of ugly and rainbow? ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#death #depression #family #glass-girl #grief

My dad used to say, ‘This is what your right arm’s for, son,’” John said. “This is the time and these are the people and I’d give my right arm to be a light, a comfort, to them. I know you would, too. In whatever form it takes. Use these materials and make something great. Do it on faith, knowing you probably won’t be around to see how the story ends. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dedication #glass-girl #high-school #laura-anderson-kurk #long-distance-relationships

Henry drew a shaky breath. “Do me a favor, Meg.” “Anything,” I whispered. “Don’t fall for Quinn O’Neill. If you’re going to do this thing with him…go to this dance, don’t fall for him.” “Never,” I said. “I promise.” “Because I’m all filled up on sad right now.” He sniffed again and I could tell he was more in control. “And you can’t ask me to sit by and watch you get all caught up in this guy. I can’t handle that—thinking he swept you off your feet because he bathed in body spray and dressed up.” His voice sounded rough. “I know you think I’m being funny right now, but I’m completely serious. Don’t make me watch that happen.” “You know my heart,” I said. “It’s yours. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#college #dating #glass-girl #henry-whitmire #high-school

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies. ↗

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

#bodies #cloudy #dead #distance #endeavor

I was 21 years and 218 days old when I received the Academy Award for Best Actress. I had just stepped into an imaginary world that I'd seen at a distance for years. ↗

— Marlee Matlin

#academy award #actress #award #best #days

At a certain stage in his evolution, man himself had been able to lay hold upon a higher order of things, which raised him above the level of the beasts that perish, and enabled him to see, at least in the distance, the shining towers of the City of God. ↗

— Alfred Noyes

#above #beasts #been #certain #city

I am best viewed from a distance. ↗

— Jenny Eclair

#best #distance #i #i am #viewed

I've been thinking a lot about space. It was one of those slow-motion realisations how little we are, how far we are from everything else in our solar system. This idea of distance started kind of haunting me. How do you go forth and accomplish things but not end up leaving everything you started out with in the dust? ↗

— Regina Spektor

#accomplish #been #distance #dust #else

Estrangement shows itself precisely in the elimination of distance between people. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#distance #elimination #itself #people #precisely

I wish I wrote more about the world at more distance from myself. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#distance #i #i wish #more #myself