Saturday, November 21, 2009

Sometimes I am not so brave...

My all time favorite novel is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. This short fable is full of beauty and wisdom. Most of my favorite quotes come from here. Whenever I am feeling a little unsure of what's going on in life, I look back to my list of quotes from this book. Here is one of my favorite excerpts.
Santiago, the young hero of the story is talking one night with the Alchemist, and tells of how his heart is afraid that it will have to suffer. The Alchemist's response is absolutely beautiful:

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

5 comments:

Eric said...

Like.

Amy said...

Reminds me of people saying they have "anticipatory grief" when a loved one is about to die.

Thanks for that.

Amanda Ann Hansen said...

This was worth waiting over two months for. Welcome back.

David and Melissa said...

There you are! I've been waiting and waiting to see what you are up to! Is there another post coming soon?....

Amber and Ryan said...

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your comments! You’re right…it isn’t always all roses; last night after the 1 hour+ ritual of getting the kids to bed, I told Ryan, maybe we’ll wait 4+ years before we do it all over again, but then he read your comment to me and it made me appreciate how incredibly awesome my family really is. So thank you for reminding me!
Ryan and I really love the stage of life we are in right now, but we do have very fond memories of when we were dating and first married, so enjoy the time of life you’re in now; but for the record, those little munchkins that you will be blessed with will be so worth it!
PS. I think charismatic is the perfect word to describe Summer