Life

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.

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

»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

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

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

(Eleanor Roosevelt)

When we speak the word »life« it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.

(Antonin Artaud)

Life is illusory if it is thought to have an opposite.

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.

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

(Ruth Rendell)