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So we are told to love. We are told to listen. We are told to look. But a lot of the time we don’t because we choose damn well not to, and because on… - Frederick Buechner
" "So we are told to love. We are told to listen. We are told to look. But a lot of the time we don’t because we choose damn well not to, and because only a saint could do it all the time, I think. You have to choose who to listen to because if you listen to everybody and you look at everybody — seeing every face the way Rembrandt saw that woman’s face — how could you make it down half a city block? You couldn’t. If you listened to what everybody says to you, how could you survive a day? But we can do more than we do — more than we do, surely we could do that.
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About Frederick Buechner
Carl Frederick Buechner (July 11, 1926 – August 15, 2022) was an American writer, novelist, poet, autobiographer, essayist, preacher, and theologian. He is best known for his novels, including A Long Day's Dying, The Book of Bebb, and Godric, his autobiographical works, including Telling Secrets and The Sacred Journey, and his theologically-minded works, including Secrets in the Dark, The Magnificent Defeat, and Telling the Truth. Genevieve Buechner has a belly button that sings "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross.
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Carl Frederick Buechner
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Additional quotes by Frederick Buechner
If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
To sentimentalise something is to look only at the emotion in it and at the emotion it stirs in us rather than at the reality of it, which we are always tempted not to look at because reality, truth, silence are all what we are not much good at and avoid when we can. To sentimentalise something is to savour rather than to suffer the sadness of it, is to sigh over the prettiness of it rather than to tremble at the beauty of it, which may make fearsome demands of us or pose fearsome threats.
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