Monthly Archives: October 2013

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

What does this final line of The Great Gatsby mean?  That depends on what you want it to mean.  You can use this line to support an affirming “life goes on” perspective. Or, if you are an existentialist, you can say that … Continue reading

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“I wandered lonely as a cloud”

This is the opening line of a poem written by the revolutionary William Wordsworth in 1804.  He shook things up by experimenting with “real language” (as opposed to the formal style found in serious writing), and he wrote about feelings (as opposed to … Continue reading

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“Only the past interests me now.”

Albert Einstein wrote that the separation between the past, present and future  is only a stubbornly persistent  illusion.  This idea is at play in Lisa See’s novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  The narrator is an old woman who looks back … Continue reading

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“Now I become myself.”

Parker Palmer quotes this wonderful opening line from a poem by May Sarton  in his collection of autobiographical essays Let Your Life Speak. For him, the process of “becoming” meant taking many wrong turns before finding the right ones. People … Continue reading

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