To have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past. M. L. Stedman More Quotes by M. L. Stedman More Quotes From M. L. Stedman No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on earth. M. L. Stedman journey life travel You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. M. L. Stedman resent-you forgiveness forgiving There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most. M. L. Stedman ocean islands night Scars are just another kind of memory. M. L. Stedman scar kind memories Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things. M. L. Stedman resent-you forgiving treasure There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: fierceness on a scale only gods can summon. M. L. Stedman ocean blue water Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it. M. L. Stedman mysterious motherhood brave Once a child gets into your heart, there’s no right or wrong about it. M. L. Stedman heart children We live with the decisions we makeThat’s what bravery is. Standing by the consequences of your mistakes. M. L. Stedman decision bravery mistake Sometimes life turns out hard, Isabel. Sometimes it just bites right through you. And sometimes, just when you think it's done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk. M. L. Stedman done life thinking Right and wrong can be like bloody snakes: so tangled up that you can't tell which is which until you've shot 'em both, and then it's too late. M. L. Stedman tangled snakes too-late History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent. M. L. Stedman consent mutual You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation. M. L. Stedman next years thinking The law's the law, but people are people. M. L. Stedman law people Nature allowed only the fit and the lucky to share this paradise-in-the-making. M. L. Stedman paradise fit lucky Humans withdraw to their homes, and surrender the night to the creatures that own it: the crickets, the owls, the snakes. A world that hasn't changed for hundreds of thousands of years wakes up, and carries on as if the daylight and the humans and the changes to the landscape have all been an illusion. M. L. Stedman home night years Sometimes it's good to leave the past in the past. M. L. Stedman leaving-the-past sometimes past Years bleach away the sense of things until all that's left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance. M. L. Stedman white past years When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken cradles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie. M. L. Stedman dark dream lying It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization. M. L. Stedman luxury purpose civilization