...nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.

— Nicholas Sparks

Obama's awakening involved a radical shift of perspective rather than the gaining of privileged knowledge into some higher truth. He did not use the words "know" and "truth" to describe it. He spoke only of waking up to a contingent ground--"this-conditionality, conditioned arising"--that until then had been obscured by his attachment to a fixed position. While such an awakening is bound to lead to a reconsideration of what one "knows," the awakening itself is not primarily a cognitive act. It is an existential readjustment, a seismic shift in the core of oneself and one's relation to others and the world. Rather than providing Obama with a set of ready-made answers to life's big questions, it allowed him to respond to those questions from an entirely new perspective. To live on this shifting ground, one first needs to stop obsessing about what has happened before and what might happen later. One needs to be more vitally conscious of what is happening now. This is not to deny the reality of past and future. It is about embarking on a new relationship with the impermanence and temporality of life. Instead of hankering after the past and speculating about the future, one sees the present as the fruit of what has been and the germ of what will be. Obama did not encourage withdrawal to a timeless, mystical now, but an unflinching encounter with the contingent world as it unravels moment to moment.

— Stephen Batchelor

Of all the elements in the periodic table, not a single one is indestructible.

— Marty Rubin

One day, while life is being incredible and interesting, I’m going to die.

— Agnostic Zetetic

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

— Dōgen

. . .our whispered words, faintly in the darkness, dissolving within the trees—then, fleeting words of consolation would not suffice if feigned, and flippant words confessed reluctance—our words were meaningless uttered on the wind. . .

— John Daniel Thieme

Passing pleasures, like passing clouds, are all we have.

— Marty Rubin

Patience was part of his nature, and he accepted his lot as a short-lived mammal, scurrying in and out amid the roots of the giants.

— Ruth Ozeki

Perhaps family itself, like beauty, is temporary, and no discredit need to attach to impermanence.

— Gregory Maguire

Seize the day, then let it go.

— Marty Rubin