Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
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The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
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Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.
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The Christian tradition was passed on to me as a great rich mixture, a bouillabaisse of human imagination and wonder brewed from the richness of individual lives.
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The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
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Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.
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What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others.
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No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a really nice man who wishes she were not.
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