Tag Archives: books
Inscrutable
Excerpt from Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley, ©1917: Rolling cloud, volleying wind, and wheeling sun– the blue tabernacle of sky, the circle of the seasons, the sparkling multitude of the stars– all these are surely part on one rhythmic, mystic whole. Everywhere, as we go about our small business, we must discern the fingerprints …
Waffles
Excerpted from Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast by Bill Richardson, ©1993: Historians annoy me with their blinkered selectivity. They took the time to write down the names of those who invented the telephone, the atom bomb, and the cotton gin. But the geniuses who left us with that truly worthwhile legacy of recipes have gone …
Books and Cats
“We have noted that a passion for books and a fondness for cats are very often points of intersection on the Venn diagram of personality.” ~Bill Richardson, in Bachelor Brother’s Bed & Breakfast, ©1993
Ideally,
“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What …
Laugh, And / Weep, And
I was familiar with the first two lines, but didn’t know that it came from a longer poem: Solitude By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. Sing, and the hills …
All The Therapy a Person Needs
Excerpted from For Once In My Life by Colleen Coleman, ©2018: I’ll spend the rest of the day tucking into a book from my towering TBR pile which looks like a little paperback city on the either side of my bookcase since I ran out of space on the shelves. I tried to have a …
I maintain / I insist
Excerpted from Abbey’s Road by Edward Abbey, ©1979: I camped that first night near the Olga Mountains, strange hoodoo domes and humps of monolithic, barren sandstone, similar in origin to Ayers Rock but different in color and shape, a little higher, and much more extensive in total area. They looked even older than the Rock, …
Home
Excerpted from Appalachia by Edward Abbey, ©1970: Through town and into the hills, I’d follow a certain road for about seven miles until I came to a church and a graveyard on top of a tall hill. (I worked there once, tending that graveyard and the dead, firing the furnace in the church on winter …
Dash
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died By Emily Dickinson I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm – The Eyes around – had wrung them dry – And Breaths were gathering firm …
Loneliness that Haunts
Excerpted from May This House Be Safe From Tigers, ©1959, by Alexander King: I find it very difficult to make any new friendships, mostly because the people I run into nowadays are full of imbecile ideas which tend to upset me. I’m too old and too busy with my own affairs to spend precious time …
Frankly, My Dear…
Excerpted from What Makes You Not a Buddhist ©2008, by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche: If we could not be bought by praise or defeated by criticism, we would have incredible strength. We would be extraordinarily free, there would be no more unnecessary hopes and fears, sweat and blood and emotional reactions. We would finally be able …
