But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. She feels more confident in the world because she knows who she is and what is important to her. The pain was necessary to know the truth, but we don’t have to keep the pain alive to keep the truth alive.ġ0. As Edna 'awakens' she begins to have a stronger sense of herself, inside and out. If you try to comprehend air before breathing it, you will die.ĩ. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.Ĩ. We are so unused to emotion that we mistake any depth of feeling for sadness, any sense of the unknown for fear, and any sense of peace for boredom.ħ. The flower doesn’t dream of the bee, it blossoms and the bee comes.Īnd your spirit will wake from its fever,Ħ.

No amount of thinking can stop thinking.ģ. I hope these quotes are of some comfort, too.ġ. I keep a copy of The Book of Awakening in my office and in my home, because it’s one of those books that’s a comfort to have near to you. If you like the quotes below, you’ll probably fall in love with his most recent book. At another point in the novel, Edna Pontellier falls. It’s hard to put Mark Nepo in a box, but then again that’s true for anyone.Īmong a myriad of other attributes, Mark is a poet, philosopher, teacher and New York Times bestselling author. One of the guests at Edna's dinner party quotes a passage from the poem, which describes lush desire.

Quotes from the awakening