Quote

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

Kathleen Norris

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kathleen Norris
Sorrow
Reach
Loss
Horrifying
Middle
Disillusionment
Age
Conclusion
Pain
Bitter
Self
Passionate
Made
Regret

More quotes by Kathleen Norris

Image
The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Traversing a slow page, to come upon a lode of the pure shining metal is to exult inwardly for greedy hours.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I write what I would like to read.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.
Kathleen Norris
Image
They are fruit and transport: ripening melons, prairie schooners journeying under full sail.
Kathleen Norris
Image
When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.
Kathleen Norris
Image
We can't give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.
Kathleen Norris
Image
When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?
Kathleen Norris
Image
If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I am learning to see loneliness as a seed that, when planted deep enough, can grow into writing that goes back out into the world.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers.
Kathleen Norris
Image
To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.
Kathleen Norris
Image
For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?
Kathleen Norris
Image
Friendship is an art, and very few persons are born with a natural gift for it.
Kathleen Norris
Image
When you come to a place where you have to left or right, go straight ahead.
Kathleen Norris