132 Quotes by Kathleen Norris

I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers…

There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year.

Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.

I've come to see conspiracy theories as the refuge of those who have lost their natural curiosity and ability to cope with change.

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

Traversing a slow page, to come upon a lode of the pure shining metal is to exult inwardly for greedy hours.

One may have been a fool, but there's no foolishness like being bitter.

A short-lived fascination with another person may be exciting-I think we've all seen people aglow, in a state of being "in love with love"-but such an attraction is not sustainable over the long run. Paradoxically, human love is sanctified not in the height of attraction and enthusiasm, but in the everyday struggles of living with another person. It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest. And that requires commitment.

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.