Wilma Dykeman Quotes

Did you ever think how wonderful to have so much ahead of us? There's a whole lifetime to be lived, all sorts of undreamed surprises to come, people to know, things to be done - and we're here! Sometimes I come right up against thinking about it and I'm so full of joy it fills plumb to the brim, like the psalmist's cup that just runs over.

Better wear out than rust out.

How strange, she thought, that she could hate and love in the same breath.

Sometimes it seemed that work was the only certainty, the only lasting truth in a human world of fitful change. Work and the mountains remained.

There standing with its hard firmness beneath her feet, her head and face bared to the wind that swept up from the deep valley below and broke in torrents against this ledge, she regained an inner quiet, a stillness she could not name or identify. It was as essential to her existence, however--had been even when she was still a child--as water or food itself.

Sometimes it seemed to Lydia that work was the only certainty, the only lasting truth in a human world of fitful change. Work and the mountains remained. Joy was deceitful and as brief as a summer rainbow. Love was a spear upon which you hurled yourself in ecstasy--to discover pain and bear the wound forever. A man in your heart, the child of your flesh, a dream of your spirit--you gave yourself to them, wholly and in wonder, and they never knew you.

She folded her arms around her stomach: how precious she seemed to herself, carrying another life, and one that was part his; carrying another design of nose and eyes and mouth, fingers and toes and tiny bones, all within herself.

If strength was what was called for, then she could be strong. She would be stout enough to carry every day as it came.

When the second pain had passed, she stood up slowly and looked around. It was a beautiful morning, a fine world into which to bring someone. She could not let even [his] absence dim the joy her body and spirit felt in this moment. She had work to do, hard work. But it was something only she could do- she and the little body here within hers. Together they must bring forth life.

This, then, was what a glimpse of truth might be like; hard as stone, beautiful as stars, satisfying as bread.

Out there beyond this brief charmed circle, all around them, invading even our own minds, was something that disbelieved and destroyed and defeated. She knew it and recognized its power and yet she would never cease to deny it. In this moment of large weakness she suddenly knew large strength, a core buried deep within her that would refuse to be daunted by the outrageous blows or the niggling trifles human life was heir to.

It is so, that when we are brought up short for a moment in our circle of activity, when we suddenly lose or find ourselves mistaken in some big plan, we must fall back on what is inside of us. It is the ultimate proof that the only real life we can live is the life which goes on in the tiny space within our skulls. Mind and spirit are what eventually save us from ourselves. They are what we possess without benefit of money or manipulation; they are the links between us and the rest of the universe.