"I wish you more for the New Year than words can express, Peace of mind and rest of your body, supreme satisfaction in your personal life, and in your work. Much joy and some happyness snatched from a mad and bloodthirsty world."
"The universe is seeming really huge right now...I need something to hold on to."
"Zip codes may change and the familiar may fade, but when we build our lives on the cornerstone of Christ, we're never far from home."
"The soul should always stand ajar.
"We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we
must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value
no matter what their color."
"Don’t refer to Christmas as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Instead, try calling it 'the world’s day off ' or 'a big party for
almost everyone.'"
"Now my heart is
"Librarians are just like search engines, except they smile and they talk to me and they don't give me paid-for advertising when they are trying to help. And they have actual hearts."
"Do not ask your children
"Reach as high as you can, and then reach a little higher. There you will find magic and possibility. And maybe even cookies."
"So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them."
"...no matter how difficult it may be to look at the realities of our lives, it is there that we will find the strength to change them. And to suppress any truth is to give it power beyond endurance."
"Every day I want to freeze frame
"My apartment is the only place that I feel safe right now. I have food. I have 600 channels. And none of them want to hurt me."
"This season of Advent means there is something on the horizon, the likes of which we have never seen before... So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder."
"Do they sense it, these dead writers, when their books are read? Does a pinprick of light appear in their darkness? Is their soul stirred by the feather touch of another mind reading theirs? I do hope so."
"O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."
"Falling into Place:
"'I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.'
"It may take time for you to find your people, so in the meantime I suggest you put a piecemeal friend life together. Remember that you do have old friends who understand you, they are just far away. Please reach out to them! Reach out and let them know how much you love them, how much they mean to you...These people know you, they love you, and you already speak the same language. It may not be as good as having dinner together, but it's still something."
"Now our story begins, as so many happy stories do, with a blue, blue sky. A blue, blue sky punctuated by thick white clouds; they drift across the expanse like semicolons, reminding us that there is more to come."
"All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order."
"And at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling."
"October is a fine and dangerous season in America, a wonderful time to begin anything at all."
"I understood that, mysteriously, life will assert itself even out of despondency and despair."
"I am good, I am grounded
"I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay...small acts of kindness and love."
"Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it, but be intentional about it."
"People are good, lovingly they tell me
"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
"Not that I have much to offer
"I think it is important for all of us to figure out what being a feminist means for ourselves. For me, being a person should afford the freedom to be yourself, without having to follow any particular set of roles or expectations that come from society."
"I was sleeping in the lilies
"I'd say I never considered myself a great architect. I'm more of a creative problem solver with good taste and a soft spot for logistical nightmares."
"Silence, yes, but what silence! For it is all very fine to keep silence, but one has also to consider the kind of silence one keeps."
"We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known."
"I don't know what's making me so afraid
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."
"When we make a change, it's so easy to interpret our unsettledness as unhappiness, and our unhappiness as a result of having made the wrong decision. Our mental and emotional states fluctuate madly when we make big changes in our lives, and somedays we could tight-rope across Manhattan, and other days we are too weary to clean our teeth. This is normal. This is natural. This is change."
"'So that's what you think you're going to do? Bring God to everyone?'
"Allow me to give you some advice from the heart: don't give up art, and even give yourself over to it even more than so far... Living in solitude and embittering your soul with recollections, you can make your life very gloomy. There is a single refuge, a single medicine: art and creative work."
"And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."
