In our memories, there is a graveyard where we bury our dead. They all lie there together, the loved ones and the ones we hated, friends and foes and kin, with no distinction among them. We have to mourn every one of them, because our memories have made them as much a part of us as our bones or our skin. If we don't, we've no right to remember anything at all.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of memory and loss, emphasizing how all our relationships, positive or negative, shape our identity.
In this quote, Steven Brust explores the complex nature of our memories and how they contribute to our sense of self. He suggests that we carry not just the memories of those we loved, but also those we disliked, blurring the lines between friends and foes. Mourning all these relationships is portrayed as essential, as each one profoundly impacts us, making them inseparable from our being. Ignoring this mourning means denying a part of our lived experiences and the memories that form our identity.
In practice
In a eulogy, to reflect on the complexity of relationships in a person's life.
Because here’s the thing: No matter how much one tells stories of magical beasts or impossible worlds, in the end, it is always the world of here and now one is writing about. The better one understands that world, the more powerful the stories will be.
I'm going to Graceland, for reasons I cannot explain. There's some part of me wants to see Graceland. And I may be advised to defend every love, every ending, or maybe there's no obligations now. Maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.
It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature-and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning-and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or "The Fountainhead" that they will betray: it is their own souls.
Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.
The journey to wholeness requires that you look honestly, openly, and with courage into yourself, into the dynamics that lie behind what you feel, what you perceive, what you value, and how you act. It is a journey through your defenses and beyond, so that you can experience consciously the nature of your personality, face what it has produced in your life, and choose to change that. Words lead to deeds. They prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness.
I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.
All religions and cultures suffer from sources that preach hate against the 'other.' Throughout history some have, tragically, practiced what their sources preached, while some have sought to dismiss or even counteract the hateful words of their sources.
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