Quotes May 29, 2018

Courtesy of Gretchen Rubin
 
 
 
 
“Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!”
Henri Frederic Amiel, Journal
 
 
 
 
“And there was, in those Ipswich years, for me at least, a raw educational component; though I used to score well in academic tests, I seemed to know very little of how the world worked and was truly grateful for instruction, whether it was how to stroke a backhand, mix a martini, use a wallpaper steamer, or do the Twist. My wife, too, seemed willing to learn. Old as we must have looked to our children, we were still taking lessons, in how to be grown-up.”
John Updike, Self-Consciousness
 
 
 
 
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
Leo Tolstoy
 
 
 
 
“I’m glad to report that even now, at this late day, a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me—more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon. It holds all the hope there is, all fears. I can remember, really quite distinctly, looking a sheet of paper square in the eyes when I was seven or eight years old and thinking, ‘This is where I belong, this is it.’”
E. B. White, letter to Stanley Hart White January 1947
 
 
 
 
“Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My script of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.”
Sir Walter Raleigh, His Pilgrimage
 
 
 
 
“When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters.”
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead