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Life and Other Near-Death Experiences QUOTES

Life and Other Near-Death Experiences QUOTES

1 " But then my lower lip started trembling and a fog of sadness rose through my chest and head, emerging as tears. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

2 " Life is devastating, if only in its limited run; but it’s incredibly good, too. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

3 " It’s permanence that distinguishes grief from other emotional pain. The unfixable nature of never—that’s what makes it so terrible to bear. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

4 " It takes guts to stop fretting about the unknown and concentrate on the present moment. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

5 " There was nothing I could do to change what had happened, but I could not stop myself from desperately wishing I could rewind my life and do it all over in a way that was the exact opposite of my past. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

6 " But here before me was a good man. It struck me that I had yet to hear him say a negative word about another person. Even if he was describing a terrible action, like his father’s inability to care for his family in the way that they needed, he spoke in terms of the event, rather than blaming the person. I loved people like this, and encountered so very few. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

7 " Yet I’ve come to understand that the way I will truly honor my mother’s memory is not with a big act, but through my daily choices: to be compassionate with myself, even when my will is weak and my body fails me; to give myself freely to those I love, even when it means my heart may be broken; and to live fully and completely while I have the chance—just as my mother did. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

8 " in order to function, most people have to ignore reality, or at least most of it. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

9 " His theory is that in order to function, most people have to ignore reality, or at least most of it. Otherwise, all of the horrible things in life—child slavery, acts of war, the pesticides jam-packed into every other bite of food you put in your mouth, knowing that you’re a day closer to dying when you open your eyes each morning—would be so overwhelming that no one would ever get out of bed. “But for you, Libby,” said Paul, “the whole world is filled with kittens and rainbows and happy endings. It’s very cute and probably helps you sleep at night. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

10 " It takes guts to stop fretting about the unknown and concentrate on the present moment. That’s what matters, anyway. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

11 " My therapist says that part of my need to have things seem perfect stems from having a childhood where everything was pretty much the exact opposite,” said Tom. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

12 " Thank you for your awful, terrible, heartbreaking timing. Because without it, I would have never ended up in Vieques, where I would finally—dear God, finally—get properly laid before it was too late. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

13 " I needed to get to a better place so I could live like I was dying. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

14 " Tom, Tom, Tom,” I said, fingering the top of the knife bar, which was dusty; I’d take care of that later. “You lost the right to ask for sympathy about three minutes ago. Now get out of our home before I stab you again. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

15 " I didn’t want to sing. I didn’t want to gorge myself on imitation dairy or put on cowboy boots. But if I could just ignore the world for a month or two, I was confident that I would eventually be able to fully immerse myself in life’s little pleasures while I still had a life left to live.   If "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

16 " It’s not your job to shield me. Being your father means seeing you through this and anything else you need help with. That is the single most important thing to me in this world. Let me at least do that for you. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

17 " But when she was lucid, I snatched up that fool’s gold like it would buy me forever, assuring myself that she was going to pull through. I put my hand over hers and sang as though time was a suggestion, and the end a choice. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

18 " Libby, you and Paul are happy, functioning people who have lived, and loved, and made the world a little bit better by being in it. That was your mama’s exact definition of okay. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

19 " If cancer was a gift, I wanted to return it. I didn’t need a fast-acting tumor to remind me about the fleeting nature of life: "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

20 " And I knew as I reached down to touch her softly, one more time, that anything that happened next in life simply could not be as unbearable as this good-bye. "

― Camille Pagán , Life and Other Near-Death Experiences