That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
Wallace StegnerRead
You married me...but you didn't marry what you could make out of me.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the difference between accepting a person as they are versus the potential they hold for growth and change.
Wallace Stegner's quote addresses the complexities of romantic relationships, emphasizing that while one may commit to a partner, they may not fully embrace the potential or evolution that partner can experience over time. It serves as a reminder that true love includes supporting and accepting not just the present self of a loved one, but also their capacity for growth and the changes that life may bring.
In practice
In a wedding speech to highlight the importance of growth in marriage.
That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.
Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.
I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.
Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
We each have been betrayed. Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past. Now sense that you can release this burden of pain by gradually extending forgiveness as your heart is ready.
Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent.
All too often we think of community in terms of being with folks like ourselves: the same class, same race, same ethnicity, same social standing and the like..I think we need to be wary: we need to work against the danger of evoking something that we donβt challenge ourselves to actually practice.
We desperately need comprehensive immigration reform in this nation, and yes, comprehensive immigration reform proposals are nuanced and complicated, but you know what shouldn't be? Our capacity to see each other's humanity.
Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
People come, people go β theyβll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.
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