Grief That Does Not Speak

Vicissitude

The Wide World

The universe is wider than our views of it.

-Henry David Thoreau 

The Chain We Forge

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling.

"Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.

"I made it link by link, and yard by yard, 

I girded it on of my own free will, 

and of my own free will I wore it."

-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 

Jealousy

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster,
which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

-Shakespeare, Othello

Nobody's Perfect

Backdraft

I took a deep breath 
and listened to the old brag of my heart.

I am, I am, I am.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

The Next Act

 It all seemed to him to have disappeared 
as if behind a curtain at a theater. 
There are such curtains that drop in life. 
God is moving on to the next act.

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables 

My People

We shape our buildings; 

thereafter they shape us.

-Winston Churchill 

Resisting the Unravelling

It may be raining,
but there's a rainbow above you.

In Another's Eyes

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, 
and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them,
above and beyond all thought, 
unless we were meant to be immortal. 

- Nathaniel Hawthorne 

Pleasures

One half of the world 
cannot understand 
the pleasures of the other. 

 - Jane Austen

Origins

Consider your origins:
you were not made to live as brutes, 
but to follow virtue and knowledge. 

- Dante Alighieri 

Little Things

Little things comfort us because little things distress us. 

- Blaise Pascal 

Wiser Today

A man should never be ashamed to own 

that he has been in the wrong, 

which is but saying in other words 

that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

-Alexander Pope 

Now To Think

And now I thought: 
till now I had only heard, seen, moved - 
followed up or down where I was lead or dragged - 
watched event rush on event,
 disclosure open beyond disclosure: 
but now, I thought. 

- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 

Bravery in Increments

When you have mastered numbers, 
you will in fact no longer be reading numbers
any more than you read words when you read books. 
You will be reading meaning.

W.E.B. DuBois 

Les is More

Have a great day.

-Les Miles

Your Reward

And he writhed inside 

at what seemed the cruelty 

and unfairness of the demand. 

He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed 

your reward is usually to do 

another and harder and better one. 

- C.S. Lewis 

The Heroine's Couch

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, 
which is the true heroine's portion - 
to a pillow strewd with thorns and wet with tears.  


- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey