[My grandfather] returned to what he called studying. He sat looking down at his lap, his left hand idle on the chair arm, his right

[My grandfather] returned to what he called studying. He sat looking down at his lap, his left hand idle on the chair arm, his right scratching his head, his white hair gleaming in the lamplight. I knew that when he was studying he was thinking, but I did not know what about. Now I have aged into knowledge of what he thought about. He thought of his strength and endurance when he was young, his merriment and joy, and how his life s burdens had then grown upon him. He thought of that arc of country that centered upon Port William as he first had known it in the years just after the Civil War, and as it had changed, and as it had become; and how all that time, which would have seemed almost forever when he was a boy, now seemed hardly anytime at all. He thought of the people he remembered, now dead, and of those who had come and gone before his knowledge, and of those who would come after, and of his own place in that long procession.

–
Wendell Berry,

Andy Catlett: Early Travels

One suspects that the conservatives of left and right don t much like the mass and its badly informed preferences. Let us take care of you,

One suspects that the conservatives of left and right don t much like the mass and its badly informed preferences. Let us take care of you, they cry. Let tradition celebrated by wise elders, or planning implemented by wise experts, guide you, oh you sadly misled mass. The ruling lords and the monopolists view the clerisy s conservative theorizing with delight, resting assured that the elders and the planners will inadvertently shield their rents.

–
Deirdre McCloskey

Dreams link us to those who have already left this life. – Doug

Dreams link us to those who have already left this life.

–
Doug Dillon

How can I find the words Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do””Except to teach me for the first time what they

How can I find the words Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do’
‘Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.

–
Dorothy L. Sayers,

Busman’s Honeymoon

Truth is a matter of the imagination. – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Truth is a matter of the imagination.

–
Ursula K. Le Guin,

The Left Hand of Darkness

What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your

What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.

–
Eckhart Tolle

The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left

The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn’t be rubbed off. It wasn’t that something had happened. It was worse: I’d become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.

–
Nicole Krauss,

The History of Love

Integrity is a powerful force, keeping you alive to others long after you ve left their presence. – Mollie

Integrity is a powerful force, keeping you alive to others long after you ve left their presence.

–
Mollie Marti

He used to tell her… that it was because Russia had left a chill in his bones. Lola Plum believed it, only because sometimes he’d get a very

He used to tell her… that it was because Russia had left a chill in his bones. Lola Plum believed it, only because sometimes he’d get a very distant and apathetic look around his eyes and he’d sting her with some harsh truth. Always he apologized for it, but she had never blamed him, only the cold of his Russian heritage.

–
Shannon Noelle Long,

Second Coming