Courtesy of Gretchen Rubin Moment of Happiness
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Archilochus
“The rack stood as if it had been there forever across the landscape and lit by the sun with its long shadow behind it, and in harmony with every fold of the field and finally turned into a mere form, a primordial form, even if that was not the word I used then, and it gave me huge pleasure just to look at it.”
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses
“The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you anyway.”
James Baldwin, The Paris Review
“When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters.”
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
“So often you have to run away from home and visit other homes first before you can clearly see your own.”
Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
“Though still very far from being perfect girls, each was slowly learning, in her own way, one of the three lessons all are the better for knowing – that cheerfulness can change misfortune into love and friends; that in ordering one’s self aright one helps others to do the same; and that the power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
Louisa May Alcott, Jack and Jill
“I should say that happiness is being where one is and not wanting to be anywhere else.”
Michael Frayn, A Landing on the Sun
“What I would like to do is to improve myself and to improve others…Improve!—such a dull word but it includes more sensitiveness, more realization of variety, and more capacity for adventure.”
E. M. Forster, The Prince’s Tale, and Other Uncollected Writings
“It showed me one thing that being an adult meant. You were no longer limited to observing the world: Now you could join it. Instead of just being a fan of things you loved, you could get inside them. You could make them yourself.”
Susan Burton, Empty
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.”
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“‘It’s not easy to start over in a new place,’ he said. ‘Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.'”
Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying
