#ions

As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate. (39) ↗

— Ravi Ravindra

#compassion #confidence #expectations #generosity #goodness

All the Kamals were fluent in irritation. They loved each other but were almost always annoyed by each other, in ways that were both generalised and existential (why is he like that?) and also highly specific (how hard is it to remember to put the top back on the yoghurt?). ↗

— John Lanchester

#irritation #love #relationships #family

Before I can say I am, I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were -- inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial. ↗

— Wallace Stegner

#family #heritage #identity #morality #past

White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#fear #guns #music #new-orleans #power

This book is long over-due. It’s a “Manhood Manual” making a clarion call for all men to transcend every trial, tribulation, or past hurt, and take their rightful place as the head of every household. This is a blue print for becoming what every wife desires and son will emulate—a man who’s strong as steel and smooth as velvet. ↗

— Dr. Walt Kasmir

#from-the-hands-of-delilah #love-hurts #mo-stegall #relationships #family

This sucks the hind teat. ↗

— Patricia Grasso

#family

I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job...and I don't want it! ↗

— Bill Cosby

#family-relationship #family-relationships #fatherhood #fathers #leaders

I Love You and your perfect ask ‘Would you scratch my back?’ is enough to stretch out hands because folk who love happily scratch backs where a person can’t reach ↗

— John Lavan

#relationships #family

Miz Ellen, what do you carry in that handbag of yours that has enough wallop to knock down a full-grown man? - Dan Landry ↗

— Barbara Falkenrath

#family-relationships #fiction #family

And, as always, I thank my family who are an amazing network of support. ↗

— Laisha Rosnau

#blood-relations #fear #fishing #hopelessness #the-real-writing