author |
title |
comments / quotes |
| Russell, Mary Doria | A Thread of Grace |
....In Lidia's considerable experience, seven-year-olds are frequently morose and sour little people.
The best policy fo dealing with them is to wait until they're eight, when they get silly.... ....The world is filled with unreasonable hate. What's wrong with unreasonable love?.... |
| Krauss, Nicole | The History of Love |
...there are two types of people in the world: those who prefere to be sad among others,
and those who prefer to be sad alone.... ....Perhaps that is what it means to be a father -- to teach your child to live without you.... |
| Jenkins, Emily | Mister Posterior and the Genius Child |
....I didn't want to perform normalcy for other people's peace of mind.... ....I was the one who knew what had happened to me. They couldn't possibly know.... |
| Hoffman, Alice | Blue Diary |
....Everything is stupid when you think about it.... |
| Lewycka, Marina | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian |
...but now I see that there are only fleeting moments of happiness, to be seized and celebrated before they slip away.... ...not on this endless carping about the past. There is nothing to say. Nothing to be learned. What's over is over.... ...Doesn't she realise how time and memory fix everything? Doesn't she realise that once a story has been told one way, it cannot be retold another way? Doesn't she realise that some things must be covered up and buried, so the shame of them doesn't taint the next generation? No; she's young, and everything is possible.... |
| Allende, Isabel | My Invented Country |
....Getting old is a drawn-out and sneaky process.... ....What does it matter if these events happened or if I imagined them? Life is, after all, a dream.... ....The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to the pursuit of happiness, which anywhere else would be an embarrassing presumption.... ....But that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral... ....Word by word I have created the person I am and the invented coutry in which I live.... |
| Umrigar, Thrity | The Space Between Us |
...the past is always present.
No such thing as bringing it up.
The past is like the skin on your hand -- it was there yesterday and it is here today.
It never goes anywhere.... |
| Trigiani, Adriana | Big Stone Gap |
....Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
A friend of mine gave me a coffee mug with that on a while back... |
| Bryson, Bill | A Walk in the Woods |
...and evertything in between is just in betweeen.... ...but most of the time you don't think. No point. Instead you exist in a kind of Zen mode, your brain like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of your body below.... ....If there is one the the AT [Appalachian Trail] teaches, it is a low-level ecstasy -- something we could all do with more of in our lives.... |
| Walls, Jeannette | The Glass Castle |
....Life is full of tragedy and comedy.
You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.... ....Why not? Being homeless is an adventure.... ....Every household needs one piece of furniture in really bad taste.... |
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