Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?
Interpretation
This quote reflects the bittersweet feeling of sharing a beloved book, knowing others will have a fresh experience you can never relive.
Jack Finney's quote captures the complex emotions involved in sharing great literature with others. It highlights a unique blend of joy in wanting someone else to experience the magic of a book while simultaneously feeling a twinge of envy for the novelty that they will enjoy, an experience that has already been etched into your memory. This illustrates both the connective power of stories and the inevitable passage of time that takes away the possibility of experiencing that joy anew.
In practice
In a book club discussion, this quote can highlight the joy of sharing recommendations.
So all in all there wasn't anything really wrong with my life. Except that, like most everyone else's I knew about, it had a big gaping hole in it, an enormous emptiness, and I didn't know how to fill it or even know what belonged there.
Then, accepting the help of God and of God's signs, he allows his personal legend to guide him toward the tasks that life has reserved for him.
Realize now the power that your words command if you simply choose them wisely.
For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one's strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.
I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage--self destructive, destroy the world rage--and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.
Often miracles are happening right in front of our eyes, but we think they should look different, so we miss them though they're right there.
Whoever is not made glorified by taqwa can find no glory.
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