What is it that you contain? The Dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia. The expanding universe opening in your gut. Are your twenty-three feet of intestines loaded with stars?
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the profound connection between the individual and the vastness of the universe.
Jeanette Winterson's quote invites us to ponder the deep and intricate relationship between ourselves and the cosmos. It emphasizes our existence as a complex amalgamation of history, life, and the universe itself, suggesting that we carry within us not just our own experiences but also the remnants of time, light, and the stars, which connects us to something greater than our physical selves.
In practice
During a speech on the interconnectedness of all life, one could invoke this quote to illustrate our intrinsic link to the universe.
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.
I was not created to be occupied by eating delicious foods like tied up cattle.
A clash of doctrine is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.
'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings and this commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai.
The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.
To feed men and not to love them is to treat them as if they were barnyard cattle. To love them and not respect them is to treat them as if they were household pets.
Stop trying to change the world since it is only the mirror. Manβs attempt to change the world by force is as fruitless as breaking a mirror in the hope of changing his face. Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.