One must go through periods of numbness that are harder to bear than grief. Anne Morrow Lindbergh More Quotes by Anne Morrow Lindbergh More Quotes From Anne Morrow Lindbergh This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide. Anne Morrow Lindbergh communication stars night So many things we love are you! Anne Morrow Lindbergh grandpa grandparent grandma For relationships, too, must be like islands. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continuously visited and abandoned by the tides. One must accept the serenity of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency. Anne Morrow Lindbergh sea islands life Yesterday I sat in a field of violets for a long time perfectly still, until I really sank into it - into the rhythm of the place, I mean - then when I got up to go home I couldn't walk quickly or evenly because I was still in time with the field. Anne Morrow Lindbergh yesterday home mean Certain environments, certain modes of life, and certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification is one of them. Anne Morrow Lindbergh simplicity may facts I think one must do the thing -- whatever it is (and it changes from time to time) -- that unites you to the flowing stream of the world. At any price, one must do it first. Otherwise one can do nothing, nothing at all. One is out of touch, out of grace. Anne Morrow Lindbergh grace world thinking These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line - all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her. . . . She had not lost it. She was touching it with her fingertips. This was flying: to go swiftly over the earth you loved, touching it lightly with your fingertips, holding the railroads lines in your hand to guide you, like a skein of wool in a spider-web game - like following Ariadne's thread through the Minotaur's maze, Where would it lead, where? Anne Morrow Lindbergh jewels lakes hands One must lose one's life to find it. Anne Morrow Lindbergh loses order For is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence? It is true that society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life. Anne Morrow Lindbergh growth age doe I do not like talking casually to people - it does not interest me - and most of them are unwilling to talk at all seriously. Anne Morrow Lindbergh doe talking people Parting is inevitably painful, even for a short time. It's like an amputation, I feel a limb is being torn off, without which I shall be unable to function. And yet, once it is done... life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid and fuller than before. Anne Morrow Lindbergh grief grieving death It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy! Anne Morrow Lindbergh nice losing thinking We are always bargaining with our feelings so that we can live from day to day. Anne Morrow Lindbergh day-to-day bargaining feelings The best marriages, like the best lives, were both happy and unhappy. There was even a kind of necessary tension, a certain tautness between the partners that gave the marriage strength, like the tautness of a full sail. You went forward on it. Anne Morrow Lindbergh maid-of-honor kind unhappy Fame is a kind of death because it arrests life around the person in the public eye. If one is recognized everywhere, one begins to feel like Medusa. People stop their normal life and actions and freeze into staring manikins. "We can never catch people or life unawares," as I wrote to my mother, in an outburst of frustration. "It is always looking at us." Anne Morrow Lindbergh frustration eye mother One learns to accept the fact that no permanent return is possible to an old form of relationship; and, more deeply still, that there is no holding of a relationship to a single form. This is not tragedy but part of the ever-recurrent miracle of life and growth. Anne Morrow Lindbergh growth miracle tragedy It is the striving after perfection that makes one an artist. It is the sense that one is imperfect, unfulfilled, unfinished. One attempts by a superhuman effort to fill the gap, to leap over it, to finish it in another medium. And one creates a third and separate thing: 'Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. But he discovered America. Anne Morrow Lindbergh artist adventure america life itself is always pulling you away from the understanding of life. Anne Morrow Lindbergh pulling understanding It is terribly amusing how many different climates of feelings one can go through in one day. Anne Morrow Lindbergh one-day feelings witty The here, the now, and the individual, have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet, and - from time immemorial - the woman. In the small circle of the home she has never quite forgotten the particular uniqueness of each member of the family; the spontaneity of now; the vividness of here. This is the basic substance of life. These are the individual elements that form the bigger entities like mass, future, world. We may neglect these elements, but we cannot dispense with them. They are the drops that make up the stream. They are the essence of life itself. Anne Morrow Lindbergh women artist home
