Frederick Buechner Quotes
On Compassion:
“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
On Saints:
“In His holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.”
On Children:
“You can’t be too careful what you tell a child because you never know what he’ll take hold of and spend the rest of his life remembering you by.”
On the Present:
“In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.”
On Laughing & Weeping:
“Laugh till you weep. Weep till there’s nothing left but to laugh at your weeping. In the end it’s all one.”
On God’s Calling:
“The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.”
On Life:
“One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.”
