We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.

 - Paulo Coelho  b.1947

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from the Charles Aznavour song "Hier Encore" (1964)

Yesterday when I was young

The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue,

I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,

The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand,

I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day

And only now I see how the years ran away.

Yesterday when I was young

So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,

So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me

And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,

I never stopped to think what life was all about

And every conversation I can now recall

Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all.

Yesterday the moon was blue

And every crazy day brought something new to do,

I used my magic age as if it were a wand

And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride

And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.

The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away

And only I am left on stage to end the play.

There are so many songs in me that won't be sung,

I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue,

The time has come for me to pay for yesterday 

When I was young.

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Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted. 

- Sylvia Plath 1932-63

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