Vaddey Ratner QUOTES

1 " Love hides in all sorts of places, in the most sorrowful corner of your heart, in the darkest and most hopeless situation "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

2 " He supposes in this way he's learned to pray not as one might to the gods but as one does by simply pausing every now and then to think of others. "

― Vaddey Ratner , Music of the Ghosts

3 " Knowing comes from learning, finding from seeking. "

― Vaddey Ratner

4 " I thought maybe we mourned not only for the dead but also for the living. We felt their absence before we knew for sure they were gone. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

5 " I said nothing. Deep inside of me, my voice screamed from a hole where I had buried it "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

6 " A story, I had learned, through my own constant knitting and reknitting of remembered words, can lead us back to ourselves, to our lost innocence, and in the shadow it casts over our present world, we begin to understand what we only intuited in our naivete-that while all else may vanish, love is our one eternity. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

7 " Truth, she believed, lies in what is said as much as in what isn't, in the same way that a melody not only is a sequence of audible notes but encompasses the spaces and pauses in between. When listening to music, you must learn to take in even the atmosphere of an echo. "

― Vaddey Ratner , Music of the Ghosts

8 " words, you see," he said, looking at me again, "allow us to make permanent what is essentially transient.Turn a world filled with injustice and hurt into a place that is beautiful and lyrical. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

9 " We are all echoes of one another, Raami "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

10 " I told you stories to give you wings, Raami, so that you would never be trapped by anything-your name, your title, the limits of your body, this world's suffering "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

11 " You can dig a hole in my heart and bury all your sadness. I'll be your grave. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

12 " Turn your tongue seven times before speaking. This way you'll have time to think if you ought to say the things you want to say. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

13 " Often I lose myself in the constellation of my own ideas, forever searching for point of illumination. But no matter where I look, I find you, shinning and bright, offering me what ever it is I seek, you are my one single star. My sun, my moon, my guide and direction, I know as long as I have you, I'll never lose my way. Even if I can not touch you, I know I will see you, feel you, from anywhere. If I need you I know where to find you "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

14 " Lightning struck, the sky roared, and the night cried a giant's tears, thunderous and inconsolable. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

15 " Life is like that." papa turned once again to the Mekong. "Everything is connected, and sometimes we, like little fishes, are awept up in these big and powerful currents. Carried far from home... "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

16 " Absence is worse than death. If you suddenly disappeared without a trace, it's like you had never lived. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

17 " For all the loss and tragedy I have known, my life has taught me that the human spirit like the lifted hands of the blind, will rise above chaos and destruction, as wings in flight "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

18 " Always somewhere there was light, and, though transient, it flashed all the more brilliantly because of the surrounding dark. "

― Vaddey Ratner

19 " Absence is worse than death. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

20 " ...it was enough that I knew I was not alone, that, at the very least, standing here beside me was this one person, who, unbeknownst to me till now, had all along been journeying this same journey with me, only from the opposite direction. "

― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan

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