Tragedy can break the heart but not the dam of the tearducts while schmaltz can dissolve the most hardened sophisticate.
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.
We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet
Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, like a fire subsiding. . . . Just this once I wanted to let it rip.
What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.
Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.
Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.
Donald Trump said women should be punished, that there should be some form of punishment for women who obtain abortions. And I could just not be more opposed to that kind of thinking.
Let those who once fought against brothers and relatives now rightfully fight against barbarians.
That memory made a lump form in my throat as I remembered his face, serious and gorgeous, those brown eyes intense and passionate as he spoke up for me and convinced the others of my value.
On the road and traveling - that's when people are at their most creative.