Quotes about Transition

One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.

Everything that is full of life loves change, for the characteristic of life is movement toward a new goal and urges toward new pleasures.

See in what peace a Christian can die.

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one's drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one's language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.

The transition from a sucking infant to a weaned child, from squalling baby to quiet son or daughter, is not smooth. It is stormy and noisy. It is no easy thing to quiet yourself: sooner may we calm the sea or rule the wind or tame a tiger than quiet ourselves. It is pitched battle. The baby is denied expected comforts and flies into rages or sinks into sulks. There are sobs and struggles. The infant is facing its first great sorrow and it is in sore distress.

When we've ceased hearing or changing, we need a new environment.

Special days, special moments don't last forever. Anyone knows that. Breezes of change blow hard and fast.

Those churches have closed down or have been merged with a church that has a more positive vision.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

I think I belong to America's last generation of novelists. Novelists will come one by one from now on, not in seeming families, and will perhaps write only one or two novels, and let it go at that.