I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.
Frank MccourtRead
That's what kept us going - a sense of absurdity, rather than humor.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing the absurdity in life as a driving force rather than simply relying on humor.
In this quote, Frank McCourt suggests that in the face of life's challenges, it is the acknowledgment of life's absurdities that fuels our perseverance and resilience. Rather than finding solace solely in humor, understanding the absurd nature of existence allows one to navigate difficulties with a unique perspective that embraces the surreal aspects of life.
In practice
In a motivational speech discussing resilience and overcoming life's challenges.
I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.
Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don't worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.
Kids all want to look cool, as if knowledge is a great burden, but they're always looking around. They remember.
A mother's love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You'll miss her when she's gone -- Angela's Ashes.
You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.
We had nothing, no television, no radio, nothing to get in the way. We read by the streetlight at the top of the lane, and we acted out the stories.
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.
I am not conscious of a single experience throughout my three months' stay in England and Europe that made me feel that after all East is East and West is West. On the contrary, I have been convinced more than ever that human nature is much the same, no matter under what clime it flourishes, and that if you approached people with trust and affection you would have ten-fold trust and thousand-fold affection returned to you.
Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.
Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see.
Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.
History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
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