Anne Lindbergh

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of time and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom.

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet, this is exactly what most of us demand.

For relationships, too, must be like islands. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continuously visited and abandoned by the tides. One must accept the serenity of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.

Only when a tree has fallen can you take a measure of it. It is the same with a man.

It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy!

But I want first of all - in fact as an end to these other desires - to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want in fact-to borrow from the language of the saints - to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach; one can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.

For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.