Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our experiences and memories are inscribed on us, becoming visible only under certain circumstances.
Jeanette Winterson's quote speaks to the idea that our life experiences, emotions, and personal history are written on our bodies and souls, forming a unique narrative that is sometimes hidden and only revealed in specific moments or contexts. This secret code reflects the accumulation of our journeys, emotions, and identities, highlighting how we are shaped by our experiences and how they become a part of us.
In practice
At a graduation speech, one might use this quote to reflect on how experiences shape graduates.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
This is the 21st-century paradox: Even as political democracy has become the intellectual default mode for much of the world, the private sector usually trumps the public one when it comes to accommodating consumer choice.
I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.
Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America -- that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, that is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.
If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.
Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
I feel like someone after a deluge being asked to describe the way it was before the flood while I'm still plucking seaweed out of my hair.
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