Isn’t it complicated to be human, though?” she said. “Animals seem to give up their lives so naturally… And after all, I grew up, I married John, I had Debby. So knowing, being able to understand and forecast and even predict an approximate date, shouldn’t make any difference. I guess consciousness makes individuals of us, and as individuals we lose the old acceptance…” “ The one thing, ” Marian said in a voice that went suddenly small and tight, “the thing I can hardly bear sometimes is that I won’t ever see her grow up. She’ll have to do it without whatever I could have given her.” “ Time, too, time and everything that one could do in it, and the chance of wasting or losing or never even realizing it. It’s so important to us because we see it so close. We’re individuals, we’re full of ourselves, and so we’re bad historians. We get crazy and anxious because all of sudden there’s so little time left to be loving and generous as we wish we’d always been and always intended to be…do you suppose I feel the shortness of time because I want to experience everything and feel everything that the race has ever felt? Because there’s so much to feel and I’m greedy? . Wallace Stegner
About This Quote

Hermit crabs are tiny crustaceans with long bodies and short legs. They spend their entire lives in one place, never moving. While they may not make good pets for humans because of their tendency to get out of their shells, they surely make good pets for kids. Just like the hermit crab, humans experience life in a short time span and must be able to take it all in and remember it all. We need to be able to enjoy everything we do and not miss out on a single moment.

Source: All The Little Live Things

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More Quotes By Wallace Stegner
  1. Wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.
  2. The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people from than the people...
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