Francisco X Stork Quotes & Sayings

Be in the world but not of the world.' The words are from Jesus. But I have not the slightest idea how to accomplish that or even if it's possible. The world will always poke you in the chest with its index finger. — Francisco X Stork

But all I can feel right now is that someone turned on a light just long enough for me to see what I could never have, so that it would hurt me even more than if I had never seen it. — Francisco X Stork

There is pain in the body or the heart or the soul or the mind or all of the above. Body pain is obvious. Heart pain is the pain that comes from others, when they love you too much or not enough or the wrong way. Soul pain comes from feel your life is one big waste. Mind pain is what I can't figure out. It's like when you throw body, heart, and soul pain into a blender, then you add a cup of disgust at all that you are, at all that you've become, at all that you will ever be. — Francisco X Stork

Doesn't it always boil down to pain? — Francisco X Stork

That's what faith is, isn't it? Following the music when we don't hear it. — Francisco X Stork

There are two different questions: Do you want to die? and Do you want to live? But in the darkness of my mind, not wanting to live and wanting to die don't seem like two things you can pull apart. They're wrapped up in the no more that I feel right now. — Francisco X Stork

If I told you that God speaks to us through our urges so long as these are safe and proper and totally civilized and don't hurt anyone, what would I be saying? If I told you longing is okay as long as it is within the bounds of what our world considers normal, I would be going counter to my whole tradition. My people discovered divine urges, for goodness' sake. Not namby-pamby urges either. It was loincloth-tearing, harlot-marrying, sacrificing, succumbing, and surrendering kinds of urges. Not without bickering and haggling, I'll grant you, but ultimately urges of the worst kind, the kind that demanded everything. — Francisco X Stork

My father looks at me the way he is looking at my mother in one of their wedding pictures: like he can't believe that she is with him now and will be with him forever, that she has chosen to be with him out of all the men in the known world. — Francisco X Stork

Actually, I am asking myself if conversations with friends always feel like this
two minds bound together by their focus on the same subject. — Francisco X Stork

It's hard to accept that depression is an illness, that moping around from day to day with no will for so many years is not my fault. — Francisco X Stork

He is remembering," I say.
"Remembering what?"
"It's a word I use for praying. Sometimes it's like waiting for music to come out of the silence. — Francisco X Stork

What the author of Genesis wants to tell us, I think, is that man, when united with God, is not divided. In this unity, there is no good and evil. All of our inclinations, even the sexual ones, are good when we are in Eden
that is, when we walk with God and all our actions, words, and thoughts seek to follow His will. But man can choose to be separate from God, and in this separateness he creates evil by imagining ways to use what is good in ways that hurt him or others, and then acting upon what he imagines. — Francisco X Stork

I hope you make it through law school still feeling like you do.' 'Why wouldn't I?' I asked him. And he answered, 'Sometimes you start off going one way and you eng up going another way and you don't know how it happened. — Francisco X Stork

Here's another unexpected experience - this pleasure I feel when I imagine how I am going to tell Wendell that I will not ask Jasmine to go on a boat ride. What do I call that? — Francisco X Stork

I'm just human. Our task is to try. Being a Death Warrior is all in the trying.
DQ — Francisco X Stork

I wanted you to have an image of this place in your mind because you need to know that it exists. People think a place like this is perfect. Living a simple life close to the land and all that. It isn't. There are mean people and alcoholics and medical bills to pay and depressed people galore. But some of us feel okay here, you know, despite all that. — Francisco X Stork

What's better? To hurt from your want or to be so dead inside that you don't want anything? I don't want anything. — Francisco X Stork

I don't want anything. I simply don't want. — Francisco X Stork

You shouldn't talk to people about the future if you don't believe in one for yourself. — Francisco X Stork

Is there any way to avoid the emptiness of people's absence? — Francisco X Stork

I deal with people like him a hundred times a day. They look at me and naturally assume I'm not as smart as they are. God help us. But think about it, it's a tremendous tactical advantage, not to mention personally liberating, to haveothers think I'm a dummy. — Francisco X Stork

The images get hazy, but just seeing a few months into the future feels like a small miracle. I — Francisco X Stork

You say that as if pretending were a sin. We all do that kind of pretending to survive ... Some pretending is necessary and even good. We can tolerate all the pretending we need to do if we have some islands of honesty in our lives. Places where we don't lie to others. Most of all, places where we don't lie to ourselves. — Francisco X Stork

My brain is like a water faucet that I can turn on or off. Only now there is no off and the water of thoughts just flows. — Francisco X Stork

But today--today I will just be. — Francisco X Stork

If you're asking all this because of Wendell, forget it. Wendell has a few marbles missing when it comes to women. I like that expression very much, even though I disagree. If anything, Wendell has more marbles than he needs when it comes to women. — Francisco X Stork

But to like your life, you're going to need more than medication. — Francisco X Stork

But sometimes i think like a child."
"you are who you are."
"if I am who I am, why is it not possible for me to work at a place where I can be who I am ? — Francisco X Stork

Jasmine is logical in her thinking. One step leading to another. Analyzing probabilities and discarding them."
"You look surprised. Didn't you know that I was smart?" She pretends to be angry.
Even though I know she is teasing me, I feel my face get red-hot. How can I tell her that I knew but I didn't know
like seeing the sunset every evening but not seeing it. — Francisco X Stork

Boy, you really break things down, don't you?'
Some say it is an illness.'
We should all be so ill. — Francisco X Stork

I'm sick of faking strong. — Francisco X Stork

Then it comes to me. It cannot be that this is the first time I realized this, but it is. We all have ugly parts. I think of the time in the cafeteria when Jasmine asked me what the girl in the picture was asking me. How do we live with all the suffering? We see our ugly parts, and then we are able to forgive, love kindness, walk humbly. — Francisco X Stork

The rocks are everywhere. You have to dig around them without getting pissed at them. I expect the rocks to be there. Sometimes I think they're put there on purpose so I can learn not to be angry about them. — Francisco X Stork

Is not seeing any ugly parts in myself an ugly part? Is not wanting to forgive someone's ugly parts an ugly part in oneself?
Yeah. I didn't understand a word you said, but yeah. — Francisco X Stork

You are not the clouds or even the blue sky where clouds live. You are the sun behind them, giving light to all, and the sun is made up of goodness and kindness and light. — Francisco X Stork

It's like what flight attendants tell you about the oxygen masks that plop down in an emergency: First you put yours on, and then you put it on the child next to you. She — Francisco X Stork

If only customs were logical. If only the rules were as simple as "Don't do anything that will hurt others." If that were the only rule, I'd have at least a fifty percent chance of getting it right. I would, for example, ask myself whether saying the Rosary silently on the train would hurt others. The answer would be no and so I would say it. As it is, the reasons as to why something is right and something is not seem arbitrary. — Francisco X Stork

It is easier to say that AS best describes my differences. It makes people more comfortable to have a scientific-sounding term. But actually, I feel dishonest when I say I have AS because the negative effects of my differences on my life are so slight compared to other kids who have AS or other forms of autism and truly suffer. I always feel like I'm doing the people who have these conditions a disservice when I use the medical term, because then people say, Oh, that doesn't seem so bad. What's all the fuss about? — Francisco X Stork

She reached up and kissed him on the lips. It was a small kiss. It lasted only two or three seconds, just long enough for him to taste the future. — Francisco X Stork

Aurora once told me that she knew I was different within the first few months after I was born, because as a baby, I never cried. She had no way of knowing if I was hungry or if my stomach hurt until I was old enough to point and talk. Even when I fell and it was obvious that I had hurt myself, I did not cry. When I didn't get my way, I would go off by myself and sulk or have a tantrum. But I never cried. Later, when I was eleven and Abba died, I didn't cry. When Joseph, my best friend at St. Elizabeth's, died, I didn't cry. Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world.
So it is very strange to feel my eyes well with tears as I read Jasmine's list. — Francisco X Stork

The "real stuff" is what he calls the music that is piped in through the speaker in the machine. The music that comes from inside my head is not considered real. — Francisco X Stork

Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world. — Francisco X Stork

We are meant to be heroes. We are meant to fight witches and monsters and evil spirits, even if it appears that we will not survive the encounter. In short, we are meant to hope and to believe in the impossible. The meaning comes from the fight itself, from fighting against such great odds and such great powers, regardless of whether there is a great victory at the end, or not. Our victory is in the trying. — Francisco X Stork

For all the pain I saw at Paterson, it is nothing compared to the pain that people inflict upon each other in the real world. All I can think of now is that it is not right for me to be unaware of that pain, including the pain that I inflict on others. Only how is it possible to live without being either numb to it or overwhelmed by it? — Francisco X Stork

Mona says that talking heals, but at times like this, I think that just being next to someone who likes you is all anybody ever needs. — Francisco X Stork

How did Ixtel become real for me? The world is full of Ixtels who I can help without hurting my father. Why this one? How was it her suffering that touched me? Father. I feel connected to her through my father's actions. I feel an obligation to right my father's wrong. But why? Shouldn't my father's welfare come first? His welfare is my welfare. How does one weigh love for a parent against the urge to help someone in need? I feel like what is right should be done no matter what. This lack of doubt makes me feel inhuman. But it is not a question of my head for once. I hear the right note. I recognize the wrong note. Maybe the right action is a lake like this one, green and quiet and deep. — Francisco X Stork

The dictionary defines pride as "pleasure or satisfaction in one's work or achievement." According to that definition a person needs to do something before you can be proud of them. You could not be proud of them simply for who they are. I'm not sure I know what pride in another person feels like. — Francisco X Stork

There's quiet because you don't need to say anything, and then there's quiet because you don't want to say something.
Marisol — Francisco X Stork

There's two of me. The person I carry around like a dead carcass inside of me and the one I show to others. — Francisco X Stork

The words are being forced out by a presence so weak and new I didn't even know it was there. — Francisco X Stork

The attraction here is based on man's need to conquer and tame, but also to hoard and deprive others of the prize. — Francisco X Stork

God's love descends on some like dew on a flower, blessed be He, but sometimes we trudge along our comfortable lives and bam, He descends on us like a splash of gasoline ... and then He strikes a match. — Francisco X Stork

You hardly see me in the sun,
My sparkle's in the stars.
When all is dark around you,
I'm the memory of light.
I'm not the fruit of summer.
I'm not the blooming rose.
I live in roots of trees
And in the seeds of love.
When all is lost around you,
When life's last dream is gone,
I'll be the breath you breathe,
The next step that you take. — Francisco X Stork

Can you hope for hope? — Francisco X Stork

Happiness had knocked on my door, and I opened it long enough to see that I didn't want what was being offered. — Francisco X Stork

It's a sadness that has been knocking at my door for a long time, and I finally let it in. — Francisco X Stork

You always do this to people?"
"Do what?"
"Get them to empty their guts out just like that."
"We do not have much time. We should only talk about what is important. — Francisco X Stork

Pain that is not acknowledged, talked about, shared even, doesn't ever go away. It hides for awhile and then comes back in a different form. — Francisco X Stork

The right note sounds right and the wrong note sounds wrong. — Francisco X Stork

The term "cognitive disorder" implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others. — Francisco X Stork

She doesn't need to believe in God or even remember Him to do His work. Her belief is in her deeds, which is okay. — Francisco X Stork

But the love I have for all of you doesn't stop the hurt I feel inside. — Francisco X Stork