When we stand on the low rungs
of the ladder of sorrow,
we cry.
When we come to the middle
we're silent.
But when we climb to the top
of the ladder of sorrow,
we convert sadness into song.
      Ancient Hebrew Poem

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. Source Unknown

In Times Of Trouble Take One Or Two Jazz-Pills. Al Hotchkiss I may become, in time, slightly more eccentric all the time. I may begin to wear outlandish hats, feathered and sequinned and rosetted, and dangling necklaces made from coy and tiny seashells which I've gathered myself along the beach and painted coral-pink with nail polish. And all the kids will laugh, and I'll laugh, too, in time. I will be light and straight as any feather. The wind will bear me, and I will drift and settle, and drift and settle. Anything may happen, where I'm going.      Margaret Laurence, A Jest of God

I am a thread too slender
To suspend all this reality...
     Phillip Pulfrey, Madness

The average life is full of near misses and absolute hits. Of great love and small disasters. It's made up of banana milkshakes, loft insulation and random shoes. It's dead ordinary and truly, truly amazing. What you've got to realize is, it's all here, now. So breathe deep and swallow it whole. Because take it from me: life just whizzes by, and then, all of a sudden, it's—

Torchwood, Random Shoes

 There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine: new feelings to get at. And always, there is a need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen, the essence—the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.

John Coltrane, 1965