The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.
It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling after and a question mark.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the importance of personal stories and anecdotes in preserving one's legacy and identity.
Sebastian Barry emphasizes the significance of personal anecdotes in shaping identity and memory. He suggests that without these stories, individuals risk fading into obscurity, reducing their lives to mere names on family trees, devoid of the rich experiences and narratives that give meaning and context to existence. This underscores how personal history and familial stories are essential for understanding one's place in both history and future generations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a family reunion to highlight the importance of sharing stories.
More from Sebastian Barry
All quotes →What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking?
Similar quotes
If the concept of consciousness were to fall to science, what would happen to our sense of moral agency and free will? If conscious experience were reduced somehow to mere matter in motion, what would happen to our appreciation of love and pain and dreams and joy? If conscious human beings were just animated material objects, how could anything we do to them be right or wrong?
One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom.
The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter.
Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion
Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction -- if a house is falling upon you, for instance -- one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may . . .