One of the very important things that have to be learned around the time dying becomes a real prospect is to recognize those occasions when we have been useful in the world. Roger Rosenblatt More Quotes by Roger Rosenblatt More Quotes From Roger Rosenblatt Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening. Roger Rosenblatt understandingexampleuse Children love to be alone because alone is where they know themselves, and where they dream. Roger Rosenblatt dreaminspirationalchildren The best in art and life comes from a center - something urgent and powerful, an idea or emotion that insists on its being. From that insistence, a shape emerges and creates its structure out of passion. If you begin with a structure, you have to make up the passion, and that's very hard to do. Roger Rosenblatt powerfulwisdomart Only by moving in the direction you least trust can you be saved Roger Rosenblatt moving-insavedmoving Anytime you make a person into something other than himself, you make a monster. Roger Rosenblatt personsselfmonsters The problem with death is absence Roger Rosenblatt problemabsence The God worth worshipping is the one who pays us the compliment of self - regulation, and we might return it by minding our own business. Roger Rosenblatt selfpaymight For those at home, as well as for those in battle, war is curiously disabling. The mere realization that one's country is at war poisons the bloodstream, creates an incessant mood of worry that infiltrates even the most casual moments. Roger Rosenblatt homewarcountry A library should be like a pair of open arms. Roger Rosenblatt librarypairsreading Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are alsopracticed in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death--that is, they attempt suicide--twice as often as men, though men are more "successful" because they use surer weapons, like guns. Roger Rosenblatt womensuicidedeath The only reason I wanted 'Making Toast' as the title is that it is a simple gesture of moving on. Every morning there's the bread and you make the toast and you start the day. Roger Rosenblatt morninglifemoving Friends are lights in winter; the older the friend, the brighter the light. Roger Rosenblatt lightwinterfriendship Blame is especially useful in situations in which there is no apparent villain-those moments that prove, despite our advancement of learning, how susceptible we are to high winds and wet roads. Roger Rosenblatt advancementblamewind Time can be such a menace to a man. By this age do that; by that age do better. Roger Rosenblatt agetimemen Uncle Scrooge preferred to let the poor die "and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge may not have had God on his side, but his arithmetic was impeccable. Roger Rosenblatt scroogepopulationuncles Slum kids die slowly, their lives eroded at so languid a pace that even they would have trouble tracing the disintegration. To the children of war death explodes like a car bomb. Roger Rosenblatt warkidschildren The Constitution is more than literature, but as literature, it is primarily a work of the imagination. It imagined a country: fantastic. More fantastic still, it imagined a country full of people imagining themselves. Roger Rosenblatt imaginationcountrypeople A five-year old is in a pretty good position to assess who is beautiful and who is not. Removed from the confusions of sexuality, he or she can judge a face as a face. Roger Rosenblatt beautifulbeautyyears My guess [is] . . . that the great majority of Americans are saying they favor gun control when they really mean gun banishment. . . . I think the country has long been ready to restrict the use of guns, except for hunting rifles and shotguns, and now I think we're prepared to get rid of the damned things entirely - the handguns, the semis and the automatics. Roger Rosenblatt gunmeancountry Whatever you think matters - doesn't. Follow this rule, and you will add decades to your life. Roger Rosenblatt funeralmatterthinking
