Quotes about transience

There's a quote from The Poetics of Space that sticks with me. Professor Clarke wrote it on the board the last day of class.

It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality. -Gaston Bachelard

I've been thinking about this more lately, especially as I look back on my life. As much as we want to, we can't control time or keep it from moving forward. Maybe there's something beautiful about that, living with the uncertainty of what's to come. You never know what possibilities will be born out of it. But some things will always be certain. Like the sun rising in the morning. Or the leaves falling in the autumn and the cherry blossoms returning in the spring. That he and I will always be connected. And who knows? Maybe we'll see each other again in twenty-nine years, when the comet passes once more, sending streaks of light across the sky.

I hope he still remembers me then.

Still others reflected on how quickly the food could be snatched from a man's table, or the child from a woman's breast, or the wife from a man's bedcloset, that no strength of grasp could hold these goods in place. And others remarked to themselves how sweet these goods were, in spite of that, and saw that pleasure lost in every moment is pleasure lost forever.

“No, literature isn’t eternal,” he cried. “It’s a thing of the moment. Even if you made books with pages of steel and diamond letters, they would some day crash into the sun and melt, together with our planet. Nothing is eternal, least of all in art. It doesn’t matter how long an author’s work continues to glimmer after his death. What matters is how brightly it burns while he’s still alive.”

Constantly before his eyes now was a river flowing from him; and it was as if he himself and his house and the wealth he had accumulated over many decades were flowing away like the river, while he was too old and too weak to oppose the powerful current.

Mom makes sculptures in the desert out of trash and our old toys. Eventually her sculptures fall apart, which is “part of the process.”

Now I was stuck and could feel the tide of years suddenly beginning to rise around me.

yesterday, in cafés and bars and streets all over town, thousands of other young couples had met, men and women whose paths had crossed and who had spent the weekend together, taking comfort in each other, salving their loneliness in this vast city. That's all, I thought as I sank down and my breathing grew deeper, aligned with his. Just as quickly as it started yesterday, it could be over tomorrow. It could all end with a big hug and a friendly kiss at the door. (chapter 13)

One would think that the mere shortness of life would be a reminder that to destroy beauty is to destroy one’s own self too.

Nothing gets dated faster than a joke.

Men go and come, but earth abides.

All fires burn out sooner or later.

I’ve seen this all before, Althalus ... many, many times. An idea that’s born in glory starts to tarnish almost immediately.