Quotes by Raymond Stone

“life was a stone cutting and grinding...””

“I'm Thankful in the knowledge that Each of us are making choices according to the best light we have. That there is never reason for embarrassment, humiliation, regret. This Life we live is here for us to make mistakes and learn from them and Spiritually grow. Imagining a person that has never made mistakes is like staring at an unworkable stone.””

“Forever Drifting outside in a pall of smoke, I follow a snail’s streaked path down the garden to the garden’s stone wall. Alone at last I squat on my heels, see what needs to be done, and suddenly affix myself to the damp stone. I begin to look around me slowly and listen, employing my entire body as the snail employs its body, relaxed, but alert. Amazing! Tonight is a milestone in my life. After tonight how can I ever go back to that other life? I keep my eyes on the stars, wave to them with my feelers. I hold on for hours, just resting. Still later, grief begins to settle around my heart in tiny drops. I remember my father is dead, and I am going away from this town soon. Forever. Goodbye, son, my father says. Toward morning, I climb down and wander back into the house. They are still waiting, fright splashed on their faces, as they meet my new eyes for the first time.””

“A Forge, and a Scythe"One minute I had the windows openand the sun was out. Warm breezesblew through the room.(I remarked on this in a letter.)Then, while I watched, it grew dark.The water began whitecapping.All the sport-fishing boats turnedand headed in, a little fleet.Those wind-chimes on the porchblew down. The tops of our trees shook.The stove pipe squeaked and rattledaround in its moorings.I said, "A forge, and a scythe."I talk to myself like this.Saying the names of things --capstan, hawser, loam, leaf, furnace.Your face, your mouth, your shoulderinconceivable to me now!Where did they go? It's likeI dreamed them. The stones we broughthome from the beach lie face upon the windowsill, cooling.Come home. Do you hear?My lungs are thick with the smokeof your absence.””

“The human mind was a devious organ, however, and it chiseled in stone that which would be best left unrecalled.””

“The holiness of lightning is in its purpose. Though it sets a dead tree ablaze, frights a dog or slays a king, what is struck is revealed by a light that makes no judgment, only resolution. The purpose of lightning is to reveal that all things are holy because they stand against the storm. The thunder shouts that every existence is a creation of the gods. Existence itself is purpose; and so all things have holy purpose; the stones that roll, the ants that toil, even the gods who are mere wind and wave, scudding clouds and rolling stones, inevitable and impersonal as the stars that watch beyond and above the storm.””

“I talk to myself like this.Saying the names of things --capstan, hawser, loam, leaf, furnace.Your face, your mouth, your shoulderinconceivable to me now!Where did they go? It's likeI dreamed them. The stones we broughthome from the beach lie face upon the windowsill, cooling.Come home. Do you hear?My lungs are thick with the smokeof your absence.”

“I talk to myself like this.Saying the names of things”

“there are no hard and fast rules, no laws carved into stone. You work with what is right for you, as an individual.””

“She stepped within by slow steps, letting eyes adjust. The cabin was large, with several round windows grimed with dust. A table to one side where plates still rested, clumps of rot implying a meal never finished. She looked about for candles or a lantern, something to make a light. But of a sudden, two lights glowed of their own volition. Casting no illumination, for all they were bright and white as angelic wings in a stained-glass depiction of the Upper House. Two eyes, set at feline slant. They blinked once in solemn greeting. Behold a cat, black as night in the deepest pits of Nix. The creature perched upon the table and pondered Collen, who stood fixed; still as stone, still as mouse in cat’s gaze. At long length the cat spoke, voice high, words clear. “Found you,” said Shadow Night-Creep.””