Life

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.

---------- Anna Lætitia Barbauld. 1743–1825

I wonder what it was in Emily Dickinson's life that made her think that parting partook of heaven – especially if she was talking about the final parting of death, which I assume she was.

For me, another great poet, Goethe, was nearer the mark, when he said that we must always be careful – for every parting with those we love contains within it the seeds of madness....

Life is what you´re caught in.

»Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had?«

Henry James
The Ambassadors

My Life Closed Twice Before it Closed
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

I'm still not sure about the meaning of life. Fortunately, this is not a graded essay!

life is 10% what happens to you,
and 90% how you react to it.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die
any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

George Bernard Shaw

Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

(Ruth Rendell)

Life is what you make of it.
Make your life extraordinary.

When it comes time to cash in that Ninth Life, I hope I will be in the sea. Man is a fish in exile. To become part of a kaleidoscopically dazzling coral reef certainly seems preferable to becoming food for worms in a city cemetery or burning in a crematory oven for an hour and a half.

Life doesn't must go on,
but it does and that's good.

Life is a series of near misses and accidents. Everytime I think I have it down, something else happens to make me rethink my approach to day-to-day situations. I don't know if anyone can understand me or my randomness.