Five Quotes, vol. xxix

 

I've been re-reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and this week K.J. and I attended a virtual interview with him hosted by our beloved American Library in Paris.  It was such a delight, and if you also loved that book, you can watch the entire event replayed on YouTube.  The last two questions Towles answers are K.J.'s!  Towles' writing is beautiful. Here are five passages I copied out this week.

"You sound as if you dreamed of living in America."
"Everyone dreams of living in America."

"That's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?  Half of the inhabitants of Europe would move there tomorrow just for the conveniences."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"It is one of the intrinsic limitations of being young, my dear, that you can never tell when a grand adventure has just begun."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it can live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty..."

- from Demons, Fyodor Dostoevsky (quoted in A Gentleman in Moscow)

"Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds.  It unfolds.  At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions.  Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually.  Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Five Quotes, vol. xviii

A Book Booth, somewhere in North Yorkshire, England

This week's reading brings us a somewhat random assortment of quotes.  Just two weeks until Christmas!  Happy reading.

"Fortune is merry,

And in this mood will give us anything."

- Marc Antony, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"Red Pollard sipped his scotch and reminisced about Seabiscuit and quietly slipped out of history."

- Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand

"The voice of books is but a single voice, yet it does not teach all men alike, because I within them am the Teacher and the Truth, the Examiner of hearts, the Understander of thoughts, the Promoter of acts, distributing to each as I see fit."

- The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis

"And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,

Millions of mischiefs."

- Octavius, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"Country life.  It teems with intrigue."

- Winter Solstice, Rosamunde Pilcher

Five Quotes, vol. xxvii

Shakespeare and Company, Paris, France

I definitely can't resist taking a picture every time I walk by it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  I hate to wish days away, but I have been waiting for Thanksgiving before bringing in any Christmas to our home.  This is usually not that hard for me, because I love Thanksgiving, but without gatherings and being in a strict lockdown for the past month, it's been harder to resist the siren call of twinkle lights and Christmas movies.  But the time for resistance has passed, and the pumpkins will be going out today in a glad surrender to a new season.  

 "Some might wonder that the two men should consider themselves to be old friends having only known each other for four years; but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time.  These two would have felt like old friends had they met just hours before.  To some degree, this was because they were kindred spirits--finding ample evidence of common ground and cause for laughter in the midst of effortless conversation; but it was almost certainly a matter of upbringing."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"For when life makes it impossible for a man to pursue his dreams, he will connive to pursue them anyway."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust, quoted in A Writer's Paris by Eric Maisel

"There is one essential truth in the stories of Nicholas and Santa Claus:  the goodness of the gift offered with no expectation of anything in return.  The value of three bags tossed through a window in Patara long ago does not lie in the gold they contained.  The act of giving and the effects of the act make those bags priceless.  That same spirit lives in our time in a parent or other adult who with secret joy watches a wonder-struck child discover on Christmas morning that Santa has paid a nighttime visit."

- The True Saint Nicholas:  Why He Matters to Christmas, William J. Bennett

"Santa Claus is, in a very real sense, the result of a Christ-inspired goodness that has rippled across seventeen centuries, from Nicholas's time to our own.  Despite secularization and commercialization, Santa Claus is a manifestation of Nicholas's decision to give to others.  The history of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus is a kind of miracle in itself.  It is a legacy that resonates with God's love."

- The True Saint Nicholas:  Why He Matters to Christmas, William J. Bennett

Five Quotes, vol. xxvi

 

The Cut-Price Bookstore

Helmsley, North Yorkshire

The above photo is one of the first times I decided I should take a picture of every book I bought outside the bookshop where I purchased it.  I don't always remember to do this, but I wish I did!  It's a special reminder of all the little shops I've happily browsed.  I must confess that sometimes the reason I don't take a picture is because my purchases are too many for me to hold up by myself and take a picture.

"Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render.  They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

"Dwell I but in the suburbs

Of your good pleasure?"

- Julius Caesar, Portia to Brutus, William Shakespeare

"Passion, I see, is catching, for mine eyes, 

Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,

Began to water."

- Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, William Shakespeare

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once."

- Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing something beautiful.  Beauty is God's handwriting."

- Charles Kingsley

Five Quotes, vol. xxv

 

Sitting Room at James Herriot's House

Thirsk, North Yorkshire

I'm adding to my commonplace book this week two more quotes from my slow re-read of A Gentleman in Moscow and some quotes that came out of E's reading assignments.  This Roman jurisprudence law made me laugh out loud, and reading Shakespeare made me marvel at how one man introduced so many phrases to the English-speaking world.  It's enough to make me want to investigate those conspiracy theories about him not really being the author of all we attribute to him...but methinks there are too many conspiracy theories afloat these days.

"After all, isn't that why the pages of books are numbered?  To facilitate the finding of one's place after a reasonable interruption?"

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"For there is nothing more essential to the enjoyment of a civilized lunch than to have a lively topic of conversation."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day."

- from the Roman Twelve Tables of Law

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves..."

-  Cassius, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

"...it was Greek to me."

- Casca in Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

Five Quotes, vol. xxiv

 

Blenheim Palace Library, Oxfordshire, England

Home of the Dukes of Marlborough and 

Birthplace of Winston Churchill

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates, as described in Plato's Apology

"With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art."

- original Hippocratic Oath

"So, against all odds, he fought to make entertainment and amusement respectable.  That he succeeded is evident with every circus, concert, legitimate play, motion picture, and television program that we, his heirs, freely and guiltlessly attend."

- The Fabulous Showman, Irving Wallace

"Taking a sip, the count reviewed the menu in reverse order as was his habit, having learned from experience that giving consideration to appetizers before entrées can only lead to regrets."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"It is commonly said that the English know how to celebrate Advent best.  But with all due respect, to witness the essence of winter cheer one must venture farther north than London.  One must venture above the fiftieth parallel to where the course of the sun is its most elliptical and the force of the wind its most unforgiving.  Dark, cold, and snowbound, Russia has the sort of climate in which the spirit of Christmas burns brightest."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Five Quotes, vol. xxiii (and a France update)

 

It's been quite the week in France with terrorism and rising coronavirus cases causing the filling up of ICU beds.  And this Friday finds us once more under the second nation-wide lockdown of the year until at least December 1, but many expect it to be extended.  President Macron wants to get the number of new daily cases down to 5,000.  This past week they've hovered between 40,000-50,000, so the December 1 date seems unlikely; however, the government also really wants to keep the economy moving, so we shall see.

Lockdown in France means not leaving your house except for doctor visits, essential groceries, and an hour of daily exercise within one kilometer of your house, and when you do leave you have to have a form filled out with one of those stated reasons selected or risk a 135 euro fine.  People will be working from home if at all possible, with the main difference from the spring being that children will still be going to school.  Houses of worship will be open for people stopping by to pray or sit quietly, but no services will be allowed.

It all feels very sudden.  President Macron addressed the nation Wednesday night.  I don't think my mind has quite had time to wrap around it all yet and what it means for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Of course we already knew these holidays would look different, but now we have the official verification that for the first time in many years we won't be hosting a crowd for Thanksgiving.  We do still have Noreen, though, so that is good.

But on to this week's reading!  They are overwhelmingly about walking in Paris, which feels appropriate as I did a lot of that yesterday during the last day of freedom, taking pictures of the sites I never get tired of seeing, watching people crowd into cafes for one last meeting with friends.

"You feel at home in Paris because the things that you care about--strolling, thinking, loving, creating--are built into the fabric of the city."

- A Writer's Paris, Eric Maisel

"The flâneur is an observer who wanders the streets of a great city on a mission to notice with childlike enjoyment the smallest events and the obscurest sights he encounters."

- A Writer's Paris, Eric Maisel

"You can stroll in New York but the Tao of New York demands double time.  You can stroll in Los Angeles but the Zen of Los Angeles requires four wheels.  You can stroll in your small town, but you will run out of sights and strolling room in three minutes flat.  Most places are not designed or equipped to support two or three hours of ambling.  It is in Paris that the delicious dreamy strolling of the flâneur can be perfected."

- A Writer's Paris, Eric Maisel

"...a chilly Octoberish smell of cured leaves rose from the ground, the indescribable smell of fall and football weather and the new term that is the same almost everywhere in America."

- Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner

"There is nothing like a doorbell to precipitate the potential into the kinetic.  When you stand outside a door and push the button, something has to happen.  Someone must respond; whatever is inside must be revealed.  Questions will be answered, uncertainties or mysteries dispelled.  A situation will be started on its way through unknown complications to an unpredictable conclusion.  The answer to your summons may be a rush of tearful welcome, a suspicious eye at the crack of the door, a shot through the hardwood, anything."

- Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner

Five Quotes, vol. xxii

 

The Little Apple Bookshop, York, England

Three out of five quotations this week are from Amor Towles' masterpiece, A Gentleman in Moscow.  This was my favorite book of 2019, and I recently picked it up to re-read it.  But after hearing me sing its praises my husband picked it up and understood its genius and delight, and that made me so happy...except then I had to find another book to read.  

"Why do bookstores always make you do uncomfortable things with your neck?"

- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloane

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

- The Art of War, Sun Tzu

"By broadening your horizons," he ventured, "what I meant is that education will give you a sense of the world's scope, of its wonders, of its many and varied ways of life."

"Wouldn't travel achieve that more effectively?"

"Travel?"

"We are talking about horizons, aren't we?  That horizontal line at the limit of sight?  Rather than sitting in orderly rows in a schoolhouse, wouldn't one be better served by working her way toward an actual horizon, so that she could see what lay beyond it?"

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"For after all, if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years.  Or, if philosophical investigations are not to your taste, then let us simply agree that the wise man celebrates what he can."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

"After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we've just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel?  For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone?  Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli.  By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration--and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour."

- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Five Quotes, vol. xxi

 

No place like your own bookshelves...

Happy weekend! 😊

"Paris makes you feel different.  The ordinary you, the you that has to go to work every morning, the you that has to run a household, pay bills, do all of those things--that you is somehow changed into an exciting, artistic, FULLY ALIVE you.  That's what Paris does."

- Trains and Lovers, Alexander McCall Smith

"Of all the glorious enchantments of this world--spring, snow, laughter, red roses, dogs, books--love is by far the best."

- Harry's Trees, Jon Cohen

"Monty gasped.  No Israelite caught in a sudden manna-shower in mid-desert could have felt a greater mixture of surprise and gratification."

- Heavy Weather, P.G. Wodehouse

"For a moment she'd feared that Herminia Treaumont was one of those uncouth souls who didn't appreciate that a well-used copy of Little Women was essential to an education."

- The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

"Whatever the benefits of the internet for information gathering it will rarely provide the serendipity of a library shelf."

- Reading Allowed, Chris Paling

Five Quotes, vol. xx

  

Vintage Christie's in Hay-on-Wye, Wales

I've been missing sharing each week's compiled quotes lately.  The past two Fridays have been busy and full.  Today was pretty full, too, but my husband is still working downstairs (recording this week's sermon), so I figured I could write a blog post at 10 p.m.

This week I begin with a sentence that made me laugh, and I end with the thesis statement of a book I started today, which may be strange, but...I liked his thesis statement.

Happy reading.

"W.T. was seated in the far corner of the room looking offensively English, with a litter of tea-things on the table before him."
- The White Cottage Mystery, Margery Allingham

"The clang of the closing door came to Sue's ears as she dabbed at her eyes with the tiny fragment of lace which she called a handkerchief.  She was relieved that he had gone.  There are moments when a girl must be alone to wrestle single-handed with her own particular devils."

- Heavy Weather, P.G. Wodehouse

"...God often does not work with the most qualified, but with the most available."

- Own Your Life, Sally Clarkson

"Middle-earth," by the way, is not a name of a never-never land without relation to the world we live in."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, quoted in A Hobbit Journey by Matthew Dickerson

"The central question this book addresses is, What can we learn from hobbits and from their vision of the Good Life, and how does that apply to our own present situation?  In particular, we will look at the hobbitish pursuit and practice of peace, even in the midst of a world at war."

- A Hobbit Journey, Matthew Dickerson

Five Quotes, vol. xix

book box spotted in Amboise, France

It's been a whirlwind of a week for our household beginning with a full day Sunday and then leaving Monday morning for K.J. to begin his cycling challenge of 400 km in 4 days. 

I read an article a few months ago about why time during the lock-down for COVID-19 seemed to pass so quickly for so many.  It explained how when we have the same experiences each day, the days run together because our brains aren't processing any new information, but when we have new experiences time seems to stretch out.  I have definitely experienced that sense of time stretching out this week as we slept in a new place every night and I drove unfamiliar roads and navigated new cities each day.  Last Friday feels like a year ago.

There hasn't been loads of time for reading this week, but there have been a few minutes each morning with a novel and a few chapters of the thoughtful companionship of The Next Right Thing book.  

"I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief."

- from The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

"That's an appropriate way to handle yourself in a storm:  take cover and wait for it to pass over.  But it's possible to live with the dread of a storm even when the sky is clear without a threat of rain.  It's possible to take cover even when there's nothing to take cover from, except for a heavy idea or a recurring thought in the night."

- The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

"The disciples traveling with Jesus most likely thought the goal that day was to get from one place to another.  In that moment, in the way God always does, he made the side of the road center stage.  He took what they thought was a footnote and made it a headline, a side-of-the-road detour in the upside-down kingdom of God."

- The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

"Bartimaeus didn't say, 'I have to regain my sight or else.'  He simply said that was what he wanted, and he left the next step to Jesus.  Desire is only toxic when we demand our desires be satisfied on our terms and in our timing.  Knowing what we want and getting what we want are not necessarily the same thing."

- The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

"Every yes you say affects every person who lives in your house.  Knowing what you want is an automatic filter to help you say yes to the things you've already predecided matter, and to let the rest fall gently away."

- The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

Five Quotes, vol.xviii

                    

inside The Chaucer Bookshop, Canterbury, England

I've been choosing a theme for my reading each month this year, and this month I decided to focus on reading Noreen's books.  I've listened to her tell so many stories that even events that happen in her fiction sound familiar to me because in every story there are bits of herself and her own varied life experiences.  I found some humor in reading a romance novel written by my 94-year-old friend this week, but I was most moved by reading Noreen's memoir of how she came to have faith in Jesus as a busy, married mother of five in the early 1970s.  I love reading people's stories, and I included a small excerpt of her describing the garden because the garden she looked out on after a significant learning experience in her life, is the same garden I look out on as I ponder all God is teaching me in this season.  My children are now the ones playing beneath the willow and the cherry tree.  I'm now the one learning to rest in the God who knows my limitations as I look out at the gray stone walls.

"Few could admit to being the victim of a fatal, historical error, she told herself proudly.  Few people lived, as she did, with the constant feeling of having been born at the wrong time and in the wrong place.  And fewer still realized, as she did, that all that was worth admiring, all that was beautiful and sublime, seemed to be vanishing with hardly a trace.  The world, lamented Prudencia Prim, had lost its taste for beauty, harmony, and balance.  And few could see this truth; just as few could feel within themselves the resolve to make a stand."

- The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia Sanmartin Fenollara

"...she was a mistress of the art of delicacy.  Miss Prim firmly believed that delicacy was the force that drove the universe.  Where it was lacking, she knew, the world became gloomy and dark."

- The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia Sanmartin Fenollara

"And it was as if a voice said: 'I know your limitations.  I don't expect you to do something you cannot do.  I only ask you to come to me and take me as your Saviour, then I can carry your burden and use you for the work I've planned for you to do.  The work that only you can do for me.'"

- Eye of the Storm, Noreen Riols

"I put down the receiver and looked through the window at the children playing in the garden below.  The sky was the colour of a tea rose and the pink and white blossom sprayed upon the cherry tree was stretching up to meet it; and I saw the beauty of the old gray stone walls encircling my home, the graceful sweep of the weeping willow whose leaves were dusting the lawn."

- Eye of the Storm, Noreen Riols

"Bookish people, I'm sorry to say, have an unfortunate tendency toward elitism.  I know this because I am a bookish person, and also because I hang out with other bookish sorts...We want to cultivate good taste in literature, yes, but there is a marked difference between good taste and elitism."

- The Read-Aloud Family, Sarah Mackenzie

Five Quotes, vol. xvii

 

Mural in Oxfam, Deal, England

I have been fully immersed in managing school this week, and my reading life reflects that.  Some of my quotes come from the kids' reading for school with Wodehouse for a little levity and a rather long passage from Dickens that felt very prescient to the way so many people--with varied and opposing opinions--feel pressured to do good these days.  Even when human nature is bad, I am oddly comforted in its sameness through the centuries.  We are capable of great good and great evil, and it has always been thus.  And thus I'll end with some Thomas Aquinas I read alongside E this week that struck me as the most challenging belief for people through the ages, yet if we believe that God planned for the murder of His own son to pay for all our badness, then we know this must be true.

"Captain Kelly pulled a chair back and lowered himself into it with a tight-trousered man's slow caution."

- Big Money, P.G. Wodehouse

"God is constantly changing the Earth He made.  He carves rocky precipices with wind, pounds beaches with ocean waves, and softens soil with showers."

- Creation to Cathedrals, Ray and Charlene Notgrass

"...his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.  You were to abolish military force, but you were first to bring all commanding officers who had done their duty, to trial by court-martial for that offense, and shoot them.  You were to abolish war, but were to make converts by making war upon them, and charging them with loving war as the apple of their eye.  You were to have no capital punishment, but were first to sweep off the face of the earth all legislators, jurists, and judges, who were of the contrary opinion.  You were to have universal concord, and were to get it by eliminating all the people who wouldn't, or conscientiously couldn't, be concordant.  You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an indefinite interval of maligning him (very much as if you hated him), and calling him all manner of names.  Above all things, you were to do nothing in private, or on your own account.  You were to go to the offices of the Haven of Philanthropy, and put your name down as a Member and a Professing Philanthropist.  Then, you were to pay up your subscription, get your card of membership and your riband and medal, and were evermore to live upon a platform, and evermore to say what Mr. Honeythunder said...in short, the baseness of all those who do not belong to it, and pledges itself to make as many obnoxious statements as possible about them, without being at all particular as to facts."

- The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens

"...there must exist something the existence of which is necessary."

- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

"This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good."

- Thomas Aquinas

Five Quotes vol. xvi

Baggins Book Bazaar in Rochester, England

I spent several days this past week doing one of my favorite things:  adding to my book collection by visiting second-hand bookshops like the one pictured above.  K.J. booked our typical off-season September trip to England back in July, but as the UK began adding various European countries back to a list of places requiring a two-week quarantine we began to feel the September trip might not happen.  We decided very spur-of-the-moment to just go for a shorter, unplanned trip, feeling that would be better than no trip at all.  

We felt pretty safe doing it as we take the ferry and can stay in the open air whilst traveling, and we knew we could enjoy a lot in a socially-distanced way.  All the other elements that needed to line up worked, so we did it, and we're glad we did.  And now I have a huge new stack of books to form my TBR for the rest of 2020.

"Sidney hated the phrase 'with respect.'  It always meant the opposite.

- Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, James Runcie

"Undergraduates, especially those in their first year, are not, of course, quite sane or quite adult.  It is sometimes considered that they are not quite human."

- Death on the Cherwell, Mavis Doriel Hay

"In a world so full of beautiful things, it seems a pity that one has got to talk about Mr. Frisby's gastric juices, but it is the duty of the historian to see life steadily and see it whole."

- Big Money, P.G. Wodehouse

"It was, he perceived, a day for joy and adventure and romance."

- Big Money, P.G. Wodehouse

"Really, Paterson, I am at my wit's end about Anne."

Mr. Frisby grunted again, this time to indicate the opinion that she had not had to travel far."

- Big Money, P.G. Wodehouse

Five Quotes, vol. xv

I took my copy of The Little Prince to Saint Exupery's

memorial at the Pantheon in February.  I love that being a 

novelist makes him a "romancier" in French.

"How we love determines how we live," he thought.

- Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, James Runcie

"Sidney was tired, but contented, after the exertions of Christmas and was on the train to London.  He had seen the festival season through with a careful balance of geniality and theology and he was looking forward to a few days off with his family and friends."

- Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, James Runcie

"He decided to unwind by reading some poetry and picked out a volume of George Herbert from his bookshelf.  He began to read from 'The Temple', a poem in which Father Time pays the narrator a visit.

In the poem, the old man's scythe is dull and his role in human life has changed.  Since the coming of Christ, and the promise of eternal life, he is no longer an executioner but a gardener:

                                An usher to convey our souls

                                Beyond the utmost starres and poles

Sidney remembered how strikingly original the poem was.  For George Herbert, the time we spend on earth is not all too brief and transient but too long:  because it detains human beings from a life outside time and with God."

- Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, James Runcie

"Oh! He would have thee daily more free,

Knowing the might of thy royal degree,

Ever in waiting, glad for His call,

Tranquil in chastening, trusting through all.

Comings and goings no turmoil need bring;

His, all the future:  do the next thing."

- from the poem, Do the Next Thing by Mrs. George A. Paull, quoted in The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

"The story arc can be one of hope even though each part of the story may have had its share of hopelessness.  The story arc can be one of faith even though the characters may have shaken fists and asked hard questions and yelled at the top of their lungs.  The story arc is joyful even when the people are broken." 

- The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman

Five Quotes, vol. xiv

from my month of reading Fantasy in January

This has been a little bit of a slower reading week for me because I stopped reading-at-whim (my July reading theme) and started reading a book I borrowed that I need to return.  I've also started reading Ron Chernow's, Alexander Hamilton, aloud to K.J., but not every night is a read-aloud night.  Some nights you need to watch television.  But here's what caught my eye this week, because it either rang true, made me think, or seemed beautiful.

"There was nothing impetuous or disorderly about this action [adopting the Declaration of Independence at the Continental Congress].  Even amid a state of open warfare, these law-abiding men felt obligated to issue a formal document, giving a dispassionate list of their reasons for secession.  This solemn, courageous act flew in the face of historical precedent.  No colony had ever succeeded in breaking away from the mother country to set up a self-governing state, and the declaration signers knew that the historical odds were heavily stacked against them.  They further knew that treason was a crime punishable by death, a threat that scarcely seemed abstract as reports trickled into Philadelphia of the formidable fleet bearing down on New York."

- Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow

"In times of such commotion as the present, while the passions of men are worked up to an uncommon pitch, there is great danger of fatal extremes.  The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority.  The due medium is hardly to be found among the more intelligent.  It is almost impossible among the unthinking populace.  When the minds of these are loosened from their attachment to ancient establishments and courses, they seem to grow giddy and are apt more or less to run into anarchy."

- letter to John Jay from Alexander Hamilton, quoted in Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow

"Of all the incidents in Hamilton's early life in America, his spontaneous defense of Myles Cooper was probably the most telling.  It showed that he could separate personal honor from political convictions and presaged a recurring theme of his career:  the superiority of forgiveness over revolutionary vengeance."

- Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow

"There were moments, usually on a sunny Easter morning, when she wished that she could with sincerity call herself a Christian; but for the rest of the year she knew herself to be what she was--incurably agnostic but prone to unpredictable relapses into faith."

- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, P.D. James

"To do justice is no doubt a very fine thing, but an act of grace is sometimes a much finer one."

- Love and Liberty, Alexandre Dumas

Five Quotes, vol. xiii

The Chaucer Bookshop

Canterbury, England

This week I finished reading Chesterton's short English history and read a lot of mysteries set in Yorkshire, very apropos since today is Yorkshire Day.  In honor of the day I included two Yorkshire sayings I used to see printed on tea towels, greeting cards, and the like.  

"...it's hard to distinguish between the irrational and the possible at almost two o'clock in the morning."

- The Red Notebook, Anthony Lourain

"Everyone who carries a lot of cares in their head should have one day a month in their nightdress."

- Murder in the Afternoon, Frances Brody

"There is something very typical of an English revolution in having the tumbril without the guillotine."

- A Short History of England, G.K. Chesterton

"See all, hear all, say nowt."

- a Yorkshire saying quoted in Murder in the Afternoon, Frances Brody

"You can allus tell a Yorkshireman--but you can't tell him much."

- traditional Yorkshire saying quoted in Murder in the Afternoon, Frances Brody

Five Quotes, vol. xii

Second-Hand Book Market in Lucca, Italy

Today's quotes are very G.K. Chesterton-heavy.  He's a very clever and quotable writer, after all.   I've been reading a lot this week, taking advantage of breezy sunny weather in our newly-acquired hammock.  It's almost time to start making schedules for the new school year, so I really wanted to enjoy the feeling of summer vacation.  I'm happy to report I managed it this week.

"A man writes much better than he lives." 

- Samuel Johnson, quoted in Footnotes:  A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers by Peter Fiennes

"The important thing about France and England is not that they have Roman remains.  They are Roman remains."

- A Short History of England, G.K. Chesterton

"It is sometimes valuable to have enough imagination to unlearn as well as to learn."

- A Short History of England, G.K. Chesterton

"If a man has a right to vote, has he not a right to vote wrong?  If a man has a right to choose his wife, has he not a right to choose wrong?  I have a right to express the opinion which I am now setting down; but I should hesitate to make the controversial claim that this proves the opinion to be right."

- A Short History of England, G.K. Chesterton

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

- A Short History of England, G.K. Chesterton