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My two favorite quotes. Well, the ones where I feel I can see him through his personna:
quote: Probably if he found out I saved up to take a train, and all this stuff, he’d probably think I was so crazy, he’d commit me to somewhere in the Poconos where I could be of no further harm. [laughs]
quote: "Do you realize you might be headed for hell this instant? If you walk out of here smiling, I haven’t done my job." You know, I could do preaching like that if I wanted to, but I don’t know if it would bring the world more joy.
P.S. I was halfway through it, alternately rolling my eyes and fascinated by the depth of his auditory life, and then I remembered that becoming as a child is one way of stating the goal of Christianity.
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I am just crying, that was so beautiful to read. I don't agree with everything he said, of course-- but the kind of person he is, how he shared ways his joy in life helped others without him even trying, just trying to be joyous and a good person, that really touched me.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I cried too, about the lady whose mom ran over her imaginary friends with her car. And about the things they said to him in the school for the blind, how God would flush him down the toilet or whatever. I love how he just helps the phone company and won't take money for it because all the paperwork and stuff makes it too much trouble. I also loved the swimming pool, how much fun he had. I totally think he got a lot of things right that we most of us get wrong in life. I think he has a lot of his priorities straight that the rest of us have messed up. I'm just glad there are weird people like him in the world, and think it's a shame that he died so young. What an amazing thing life is!
"sometimes instead of warming yourself by somebody’s fire you have to light one"
"Some of those grown-up things, for a child, when you really do all that, it’s really neat to pretend like you’re a grown-up, and go up with all those papers and get stuff with seals on it." I totally feel like that every day, like all this is a game I'm playing at, and I'm enjoying the make-believe where I go to the office and I give my presentations and stuff but really I'm just this kid having fun.
"When I was little and died, I went to this beautiful place, and people there I met told me that I had decided before I was born that it (being blind) was part of my mission somehow. Then I forgot most of what they told me when I came back, but I remembered that part."
"I think that’s the essence of what this childhood is about – a different way of seeing. You sit down in front of a dandelion, and see it as a beautiful flower, and learn that you can talk and listen to stinky socks. When you find them in a closet, you say "Socks, do you want to stay this stinky?" and they say "No." You rinse them out, and realize they’re your first two friends in Pittsburgh. When I came here and was kind of overwhelmed that first Friday .... they made real good stoppers in the bathtub."
"But if I just settle back and be me, you know sometimes curmudgeonly and sometimes being kind of rude and sometimes feeling bad, and sometimes maybe even road rage – except I don’t drive, but you know. Being a wounded healer, and not being perfect, but there are times when both of us in the world are bringing each other joy, you know."
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