When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

—Cynthia Ozick

attention gratitude presence taking for granted

About Cynthia Ozick

Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.

More quotations from Cynthia Ozick

I'm not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called "scientific" mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.

—Cynthia Ozick

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination.

—Cynthia Ozick

To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.

—Cynthia Ozick

More quotations tagged with “presence”

You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost.

—Jonathan Tropper in This is Where I Leave You

now presence change loss

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

—Pema Chödrön

humanity presence relationship compassion equality darkness healer wounded similarity

Nonattachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life.

—Stephen Levine

feeling mind presence desire nonattachment spaciousness witness

There is a difference between saying goodbye and letting go. Goodbye is not permanent. You can meet years later and share what happened in your life. You can smile and laugh about all the nonsense that you both went through. However, letting go is being okay with never seeing this person ever again…being okay with never knowing how their life turned out…being okay with fifty or more years of silence…being okay with running into that person at a grocery store and having them not acknowledge your presence. This is the part of life that doesn't sit well with me and never will. It tears my heart in pieces, robs me of gratitude, drains me of anything positive and eats at the faith that holds on.

—Shannon L. Alder

life silence gratitude presence knowledge man will art seeing heart good faith tears goodbye

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.

—Thomas Fuller

love presence absence