naivety

The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.

Confidence is something you feel before you truly understand the situation

I was the worst kind of fool. When I look back on that August night, changed forever by all my wounds and all my suffering, that undamaged Odd Thomas seems like a different human being from me, immeasurably more confident than I am now, still able to hope, but not as wise, and I mourn for him.

There was a time when that kind of thing looked like the kingdom of heaven, but somewhere along the line it had lost its glow. Maybe that was just the cost of growing up. And maybe the cost of growing up was too high.

When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing.

A girl got kicked out of the swimming hole today. Inge Hachmann. They said they wouldn__ let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren__ we half-breeds too? Aren__ we half our mother, half our father?

If you__e not carefulyou__l end up believing this is the world

I love you without knowing how, nor when, nor from where,I love you directly without problems or pride:I love you this way because I know no other way to love,

Hope is for people who can't see the Truth.

(On getting married at 19) We told ourselves we had forever and we never looked back. The problem was that we never really looked ahead.

No matter how kind you are, always expect a few imbeciles.

In our day everyone wants to appear intelligent, one would prefer to be accused of crime than of naiveté if the accompanying risks could be avoided. But since intelligence cannot be drawn from the void, subterfuge are resorted to, one of the most prevalent being the mania for "demystification", which allows an air of intelligence to be conveyed at small cost, for all one need do is assert that the normal response to a particular phenomenon is "prejudiced" and that it is high time it was cleared of the "legends" surrounding it; if the ocean could be made out to be a pond or the Himalayas a hill, it would be done. Certain writers find it impossible to be content with taking note of the fact that a particular thing or person has a particular character or destiny, as everyone had done before them; they must always begin by remarking that "it has too often been said", and go on to declare that the reality is something quite different and has at last been discovered, and that up till now all the world has been "living a lie". This strategy is applied above all to things that are evident and universally known, it would doubtless be too naive to acknowledge in so many words that a lion is a carnivore and that he is not quite safe to meet.

To be naive is to be unaware of how stupid and cruel other people are; but, by some definitions, ignorance is nearly the opposite of naivety in being a kind of cynicism, in being unaware of their intelligence and humanity. It seems to be a normal although unfortunate case that the great many of us consciously abhor ignorance in others yet subconsciously practice it ourselves: as naivety is apparent and well-known to inflict its damage upon oneself; whereas the alternative and the easier, ignorance, its damage upon others.

I am naïve and I have fucked up but I tell you something else. I believe in change. I don't mind getting my hands dirty because my hands are dirty already. I don't mind giving my life to this because I'm only alive because of the compassion and love of others.

I do not much trust the man who cares solely to inspire - he does not really inspire me - only the man who cares mostly to tell the truth, whatever that may do. For when the man who cares to tell the truth happens to inspire, I, in addition, find it easier to believe that he in fact does his homework on how and when one should truly inspire.

Every word that comes after "And the Lord told me. . . __s a pious lie

Most often, what I don__ know will have a vastly greater bearing on my life that what I do know.

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.