Toe Quotes

“My mother always wanted to live near the water," she said. "She said it's the one thing that brings us all together. That I can have my toe in the ocean off the coast of Maine, and a girl my age can have her toe in the ocean off the coast of Africa, and we would be touching. On opposite sides of the world.”

“If peace comes from seeing the whole,then misery stems from a loss of perspective.We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe.Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day—the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening?It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we’re miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like.When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we’re up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first.In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.”

“Leaders don’t step on toes of dwarfs. They mount shoulders of giants.”

“I'm smart and I can be really funny and interesting and I can go toe-to-toe with anybody in a conversation.”

“Beautiful toes are an addition to a woman’s appearance.”

“Sometimes it’s the dirt between your toes that gives you the clearest picture in your mind. Grounding yourself aligns the dirt between your toes and the vision in your mind.”

“If toes had eyes,then I could seehow my feet know where to go,but toes are blind.And how is it that my tonguespeaks words it cannot hear?Because for all its eloquence,the tongue itself is deaf,and flaps in soundlessness.”

“To my shame, my nation and the church of the lord Jesus Christ in my continent is covered head to toe in this ignorance.”

“Ballet shoes... I cannot play with them like they're toys. But when the music is playing they get deep on my toes.”