I borrowed his brightness and used it to see my way, and then gradually, from the habit of looking at the world as he illuminated it, the light in my own mind rekindled.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the influence of others in helping us find our own clarity and insight.
In this quote by Geraldine Brooks, the speaker describes how they benefited from someone else's perspective and insight, which initially guided them. Over time, this borrowed brightness not only illuminated their path but also rekindled their own inner light, suggesting that learning from others can lead to personal enlightenment and growth.
In practice
During a motivational speech on personal growth and the influence of mentors.
Sydney in the 1960s wasn't the exuberant multicultural metropolis it is today. Out in the city's western reaches, days passed in a sun-struck stupor. In the evenings, families gathered on their verandas waiting for the 'southerly buster' - the thunderstorm that would break the heat and leave the air cool enough to allow sleep.
...The hagaddah came to Sarajevo for a reason. It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. p. 361
Men can absent themselves from real life for their art more easily. Women are anchored into the quotidian business of getting food on the table, making sure everybody's socks match, the soccer gear is ready. I admire idealists, but they're usually enabled by someone who holds the tether on their balloon, who pays the bills and sweeps up after them.
The Sarajevans have a very particular world view - a mordant wit coupled with this unbearable sadness and... truckloads of guts, you know.
The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life.
The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.
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