I had a whole intro to this post, and it disappeared when I published. [insert murderous thoughts here]. Something hinky is going on with my draft folder...
The nutshell: I missed the bus on this when it was all the rage, but glad I took the ride now. Here are all the passages I re-copied into my journal. Read it for yourself, no matter your theology (as you might imagine I squinted at quite a few things described), and you'll have lots of your own passages to dog-ear, too, I would imagine.
Photo links to the Amazon.com page:
[pg. 12] ..I only exhausted him. We both knew there was something wrong with me and he'd been losing patience with it. We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in a way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees.
[pg. 21] Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story ... when the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore - despite the fact that you KNOW he has it hidden somewhere, god*mn it, because he used to give it to you for free) ... Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with a high passion
...during the worst ugliness of divorce (a life experience my friend Brian has compared to "having a really bad car accident every single day for about two years")...
[pg. 58] He says all Americans are like this: repressed. Which makes them dangerous and potentially deadly when they do blow up. "A savage people," he diagnoses.
[pg. 83] The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she would eat his soul. Or I might even learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul.
[pg. 102] In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a Codega - a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets.
[pg. 122] ...the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I'm going to over-simply define here as the heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment.
[pg. 132] I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the, "monkey mind" - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.
[pg. 141] "That's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what your ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you're flawed and broken and alone instead of whole"
[pg. 148] He says, "Give it another six months, you'll feel better." "I've already given it twelve months, Richard." "Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time."
[pg. 150] "You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be."
[pg 155] Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well - that would be the end of the universe.
[pg. 157] "There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all thought history. How much do you love me? -and- Who's in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering" ... it is only questions of longing and control that emerge to agitate me, and this agitation is what keep me from evolving forward.
[pg. 171] you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
[pg. 175] In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult ... Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark.
[pg. 207] "Imagine that the universe is a great spinning engine," he said. "You want to stay near the core of the thing - right in the hub of the wheel - not out at the edges where all the wild whirling takes place, where you can get frayed and crazy. The hub of calmness - that's your heart. That's where God lives within you. So stop looking for answers in the world. Just keep coming back to that center and you'll always find peace."
[pg. 279] "I think she had a secret mind inside her other mind, nobody can see inside there."
