Carew Papritz

“Remember, Little Ones, everything is not important all the time. Only living is important all the time. Not things. Not money. Not more things and more endless money. Spend well the quality of your time. And yes, be greedy with your hours. If only to then give those hours away as the most precious gifts you have to offer to yourself, your family, and your friends. And yes, to my Little Ones.” –From The Legacy Letters–“The Everything and Nothing of Money.”

“Your time is your time. Be awake to it. It's hard work to be wisely alive.”

“Start with a brand new good-morning. To your husband or your wife. To your kids. To those you work with - and don't work with. What's the harm? How difficult is it? And it isn't, and you know it. So do it.”

“Take off my clothes and there becomes a man. Take off my skin and there becomes my bones. Break all my bones and there becomes my heart. Smash my heart and there becomes my soul. And that you cannot take.”

“Sometimes the best way is to get out of your own way.”

“I remember once kissing you, your face lit by northern stars. Promising to grow old with you, and now so simply breaking the promise.”

“It’s a fool who thinks having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fish heads I’ve ever heard.”

“Make doing your best a habit, and you’ll never know not doing your best.”

“You become a man when you marry not just for love but to be a partner with your wife. To be the best man you can be with her, and when you fall short, to admit your shortcomings and to constantly strive to be a great man to your wife.”

“HungerYou are only here now, and then you are gone. So be hungry. Hunger toward beauty. Hunger toward love. Hunger towards the unimaginable and unthinkable.”

“When do you become a man? Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not.”

“Starting the DayThe Legacy Letters By Carew PapritzSometimes we make being happy so difficult. And being thankful such a chore. Starting the day like a job we hate. Beginning it like swallowing ten tablespoons of devil-made cough syrup. Because somehow along the way we forget that being alive and healthy and happy are noble goals-or just good ideas. And that the opposite of being alive is being dead. What a choice.”

“Respect both what you need to know and what you don't need to know. Respect mystery, for mystery is still needed to run the universe." -- The Legacy Letters, by Carew Papritz"Things I didn't know.”

“I want to remember...Smelling your newness upon this earth. The baby-Jesus smell as Grandma used to put it. Pure. Unsullied. Like the imagined smell in the twirling air of eiderdown feathers spin-floating around the yard on a new spring day.”

“You might want more time in your life to attempt the things you like to do, and not just perform the things you have to do.”

“Starting the Day— Another chance to be new again. How many of us still wish for that? To be your own sunrise. To awaken like a prayer -both solemn and joyful at still being alive.”

“It is everything that makes a man. It is everything that makes this man. And that is who I am alive, and that is who I am dead.”

“I can FEEL her next to me. This UNION. Of WARMTH. Of CARING. Of the INDESCRIBABLE. As if there were NO PARTING and NEVER could be.”

“I gather the last remnants of the evening’s breeze, so cool and lazy within my arms, feeling it curl up like a small and innocent kitten.”

“Who will you be, my Little Ones? Will you dance for the fires of your youth and run at midnight to water’s edge, diving into summer’s heat? Will you ride a wild mare to any thought or dream or love of your making? Will you seek the artistry of your own infatuations and explore . . .”