Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Quotes that moved me with their simplicity and depth.
Well remember you said how Einstein proved that nothing could be created or destroyed? He was talking about matter and energy not people. Mom was energy, right? Mom’s prayer—may all sentient beings be free from needless suffering. Spring will keep coming back, whatever happens. Right, Dad? Does it make a difference at all if it happened anywhere else? It happened here. That’s everything, right? This is life, if I could keep this with me forever. Such a small difference, forever and once. The darker it gets the better I can see out of the sides of my eyes. Try. Can you believe where we just were…
Richard Powers wrote a hopeful book, heaped in love and beauty yet so sad it touched all my emotions. I’d love to sit with Richard Powers to learn how he channeled profound questions I had as a child, worried and fascinated. His prose took us into the mind of a brilliant and troubled child, while he explained the universe in metaphor and steeped in reality so that we could make a new sense of the un-sensible. I cried, laughed, cried, and I wanted to talk with my amazed self at nine. The message is to continue, wonder, question, accept, try.
