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121 " It’s as if the body is a candle and the soul is its flame. When the flame is snuffed out, all that is left to prove that there had been a flame is the candle, "
― Susan Meissner , As Bright as Heaven
122 " even that we only have for a little while. Even the candle is not ours to keep. And yet how we care for that candle for that stretch of time that it is still ours! How we want to remember the shape and fragrance of the little "
123 " sometimes in a blink, and sometimes so slowly you can’t even see it happening. "
124 " Don’t borrow tomorrow’s burdens, my gram used to say. "
― Susan Meissner , The Nature of Fragile Things
125 " When we trust someone, we believe what they tell us is true. We experience it as being true. It's not the experience itself that empowers us to believe it. It is the trust. "
― Susan Meissner , The Girl in the Glass
126 " I hope she still thinks butterflies are beautiful. I think they are. We shouldn't think for a moment that just because their lives are short they shouldn't be there. "
127 " Yes. Strangely enough, war has a way of absolving us of the mistakes we make while in its dreadful shadow, but it keeps this absolution a secret. I didn’t realize I was playing my cards against a cruel opponent that had its own cards to play. "
― Susan Meissner , Secrets of a Charmed Life
128 " When you are hungry for something, you often do not use your best judgment. "
129 " Why do people hurt other people?I murmur.Lila laughs. Because they can, sweetheart.I look at the face in the mirror, at that sad face.That can't be the reasonLila leans in. Her face is next to mine.......Sometimes they just can't help it, she says. They don't mean to hurt anyone. It just happens. And there's nothing you can do about it.Nothing ?Not unless you've got a magic wand, love. "
130 " understand there are no secrets to a charmed life. There is just the simple truth that you must forgive yourself for only being able to make your own choices, and no one else’s. "
131 " what we see is not always what is. And what is, we often cannot see until we train our eyes to see it. "
132 " hills in the distance—beyond the tiny coastal city and the boats in the water that everyone in a hurry misses—represent all that is beyond the moment in time when the angel told the Virgin she would bear the Savior of the world. That is the vanishing point. Without it, there would be no sense that this moment is a slice of time. "
133 " The heart always does what it needs to do. "
134 " In that moment I began to see that there are times when there is no best choice. There is only this choice and that choice, and both are terrible. "
― Susan Meissner , The Last Year of the War
135 " a happy life is not made up of what you have dreamed of, chased after, and achieved, but rather whom you poured your life into, who poured their life into yours, and the difference you’ve made in the lives of others. Most of the dreams we pursue don’t have intrinsic worth, but people always do. "
136 " People who say everything happens for a reason usually say that only when they agree with the reason. Those people are not the ones who wish they could fold back time and make different choices. They don’t lie awake at night and whisper, If only . . . "
― Susan Meissner , A Fall of Marigolds
137 " I find that I am also shedding tears of happiness and relief that something good can still happen in this upside-down world. "
138 " I smiled at this because some days I feel as though I’ve already lived several lifetimes and others as though I haven’t lived any kind of life at all, that I’m still waiting for it to start. Or waiting for it to start over. "
139 " that if it were made of words would "
140 " Event succeeds event; accidents, people, happenings, one after another come toward us. Each must be met and dealt with. . . . For this process of adjustment is life, and the mastery of it is the art of living. . . . —KARL DE SCHWEINITZ, The Art of Helping People out of Trouble, 1924 "