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1 " We're all golden sunflowers inside. "
― Allen Ginsberg
2 " If roses tried to be sunflowers, they would lose their beauty; and if sunflowers tried to be roses, they would lose their strength. "
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3 " Let the sunflowers of thy soul bloom in the sunshine. "
4 " A wise quote can only change a wise man! Therefore, wise sayings are for the wise men, not for the fools! The sunflowers turn their face toward the Sun, the fools, toward the darkness! "
― Mehmet Murat ildan
5 " My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to God. If you say to God, " I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don't like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You," that might be the most honest thing you've ever said. If you told me you had said to God, " It is all hopeless, and I don't have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand," it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside. "
6 " As Sidda joined Vivi in staring out into the darkness of the fields, where hundreds of sunflowers grew, she thought: I will never fully know my mother, any more than I will ever know my father or Connor, or myself. I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts? "
― Rebecca Wells , Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
7 " Sobs force their way out of my throat. I feel like I’m trapped in a disaster movie where everything is shriveling into darkness and ash. Sunflowers are being uprooted. Puppies are being trampled. Whole cities are crumbling to dust. "
― Paula Stokes , The Art of Lainey (The Art of Lainey, #1)
8 " Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystalsurrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,or cherries, the rich spurt in the backof the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.Give me the lover who yanks open the doorof his house and presses me to the wallin the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I’m drenchedand shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatloadand begin their delicious diasporathrough the cities and small towns of my body.To hell with the saints, with martyrsof my childhood meant to instruct mein the power of endurance and faith,to hell with the next world and its pallid angelsswooning and sighing like Victorian girls.I want this world. I want to walk intothe ocean and feel it trying to drag me alonglike I’m nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,and I want to resist it. I want to gostaggering and flailing my waythrough the bars and back rooms,through the gleaming hotels and weedylots of abandoned sunflowers and the parkswhere dogs are let off their leashesin spite of the signs, where they sniff eachother and roll together in the grass, I want tolie down somewhere and suffer for love untilit nearly kills me, and then I want to get up againand put on that little black dress and waitfor you, yes you, to come over hereand get down on your knees and tell mejust how fucking good I look.- “For Desire "
― Kim Addonizio
9 " But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers’ as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can’t drink the water either. "
― Robin Wall Kimmerer , Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
10 " For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease they'll bend to his light. "
― Barbara Kingsolver , The Poisonwood Bible
11 " Fanfare for the MakersA cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?To the small fire that never leaves the sky.To the great fire that boils the daily pot.To all the things we are not remembered by,Which we remember and bless. To all the thingsThat will not notice when we die,Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.So fanfare for the Makers: who composeA book of words or deeds who runs may writeAs many who do run, as a family growsAt times like sunflowers turning towards the light.As sometimes in the blackout and the raidsOne joke composed an island in the night.As sometimes one man’s kindness pervadesA room or house or village, as sometimesMerely to tighten screws or sharpen bladesCan catch a meaning, as to hear the chimesAt midnight means to share them, as one manIn old age plants an avenue of limesAnd before they bloom can smell them, before they spanThe road can walk beneath the perfected arch,The merest greenprint when the lives beganOf those who walk there with him, as in defaultOf coffee men grind acorns, as in despiteOf all assaults conscripts counter assault,As mothers sit up late night after nightMoulding a life, as miners day by dayDescend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kiteIn an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers playTheir fish, as workers work and can take prideIn spending sweat before they draw their pay.As horsemen fashion horses while they ride,As climbers climb a peak because it is there,As life can be confirmed even in suicide:To make is such. Let us make. And set the weather fair.Louis Macneice "
― Louis MacNeice , Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice