Archives
“Melissa painted self-portraits from bed; I wrote self-portraits from bed. Watercolors and words were the drugs we preferred for our pain. We were learning that sometimes the only way to endure suffering is to transform it into art.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 157)
“Meaning is not found in the material realm—dinner, jazz, cocktails, conversation or whatever. Meaning is what’s left when everything else is stripped away.”
Howard, via Between Two Kingdoms (Page 126)
“For the person facing death, mourning begins in the present tense, in a series of private, preemptive goodbyes that take place long before the body’s last breath.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 122)
“What I’ve found to be important is mainly just the realization that everyone has all knowledge and all humanity within themselves. Individual minds are connected to a universal mind. All people need to do is find out how to get it and reach it when they need it. Karma is simple truth: you reap what you sow.”
Willie Nelson, via Sunbeams (Page 143)
“We are all terminal patients on this earth—the mystery is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ death appears in the plotline.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 119)
“It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry.”
Adrienne Rich, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 115)
“I decided to reimagine my survival as a creative act. If the chemo sores in my mouth made it too painful to talk, I would find new ways to communicate. As long as I was stuck in bed, my imagination would become the vessel that allowed me to travel beyond the confines of my room. If my body had grown so depleted that I now had only three functional hours each day, I would clarify my priorities and make the most of how I spent the time I had.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 109)
“Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright—if a short play, then it’s short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play the beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned you. That selection belongs to another.”
Epictetus, via The Daily Stoic (Page 333)
