Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
James Lee BurkeRead
I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent?" The Glass Rainbow, p. 138
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of time and existence, suggesting that all moments coexist simultaneously rather than sequentially.
In this thought-provoking quote, James Lee Burke explores the concept of time as a fluid construct rather than a linear progression, proposing that historical events and lives of individuals might exist concurrently in a shared space. This perspective challenges the conventional understanding of time, suggesting that it is humanity's limited perception that creates the illusion of sequences, while all experiences and lives could be unfolding simultaneously, creating a profound connection between the past, present, and future.
Themes
TimeExistencePhilosophySimultaneityReality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the nature of time, this quote can be used to illustrate alternative perspectives.
More from James Lee Burke
All quotes →Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.
James Lee BurkeRead
It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.
James Lee BurkeRead
In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.
James Lee BurkeRead
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.
James Lee BurkeRead
I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else.
James Lee BurkeRead
Similar quotes
If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death.
Ernest HemingwayRead
Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly.
Eckhart TolleRead
Ending poverty calls for humility, honesty, freedom from ideology and refusal to accept cruel simplicities about anyone's human potential. It requires listening to the wisdom and cutting the nonsense from both the Right and the Left.
Donella MeadowsRead
Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.
Joseph CampbellRead
The Sunni militants that make up ISIS are not the underlying problem in Syria and Iraq, but rather they are a symptom of other deeper problems.
Peter BergenRead