Quotes about Reflection

My heart is broken, he told himself. It was at that moment he understood the profound meaning of that common phrase: he thought he heard the sound of glass breaking and felt that the essence of his being was pouring out until he was empty, with no memory of the past, no awareness of the present, no hope for the future.

Her body was growing old, but inside she still kept intact the adolescent she once was.

She tried to understand what it meant to carry winter on your back, to hesitate over every step, to confuse words you don't hear properly, to have the impression that the rest of the world is going about in a great rush; the emptiness, frailty, fatigue, and indifference toward everything not directly related to you, even children and grandchildren, whose absence was not felt as it once had been, and whose names you had to struggle to remember.

As well as walking erect and disguising his tiredness, he also tried to avoid other symptoms of old age: meanness, mistrust, ill temper, resentment, and bad habits such as no longer shaving every day, repeating the same stories over and over, talking about himself, his ailments, or money.

Because I have time to spare, and for the first time in my life nobody expects anything of me. I don't have to prove anything. I'm not rushing anywhere; each day is a gift I enjoy to the fullest.

My old age is a precious gift. My brain still works. I like my brain. I feel lighter. I am free of self-doubt, irrational desires, useless complexes, and other deadly sins that are not worth the trouble. I am letting go…letting go. I should have started earlier.

What's the worst thing about growing old?" she would ask them. They never thought about their age, was a common reply; they had once been adolescents, then they were thirty, fifty, sixty, and never gave it a thought, so why should they do so now?

I wait for you to complete the voyage into yourself, for the old wounds to heal. I know that when you return from your nightmares, we shall again walk hand in hand, as before.

But that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion.

AND SINCE we're talking about nostalgia, I beg you to have a little patience with what follows because I can't separate the subject of Chile from my own life. My past is composed of passions, surprises, successes, and losses: it isn't easy to relate in two or three sentences.

People come and go, and even the closest members of the family eventually disperse. It's useless to cling to anybody or anything because everything in the universe tends toward separation, chaos, and entropy, not cohesion. I have chosen a simpler life, with fewer material things and more leisure, fewer worries and more fun, fewer social commitments and more true friendship, less fuss and more silence.

Are you afraid?" asked Alma. "No. I suppose that what comes after death is the same as before birth.