In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the interconnectedness of time and existence, suggesting that all moments are interconnected in a non-linear way.
James Lee Burke's quote explores the concept of time as a fluid, non-linear experience where past, present, and future coexist simultaneously. It likens this experience to a dream, implying that reality is not solely chronological but is intertwined, allowing us to perceive all moments as if they were happening at once, potentially reflecting a divine perspective on existence.
In practice
In a discussion about time perception in philosophy classes.
I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent?" The Glass Rainbow, p. 138
Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.
It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.
I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else.
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.
No idea is conceived in our mind independent of our five senses [i.e., no idea is divinely inspired].
Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species.
Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of the (angel's) garments, the waving robes of those whose faces see God.
Your reputation is what you're perceived to be, Your character is what you really are
No one is born a terrorist, but the route to become one is surprisingly easy. We need to listen to those who have been there, and those who have made their way back, if we want to stop others from taking their first steps down this same path into darkness.
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