It's funny how I read this at the same time I was reading These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner and the one quote that stood out to me is similar to one in Turner's book. The quote:
"And once begun, change cannot be reversed."
Maybe it has to do with my own feelings about and resistance to change.
Monday, October 24, 2011
These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner
This is a beautifully written book. The many, and I know it's a lot, samples I selected here all spoke to me, but the entire book is written with beautiful prose in a first person account that manages to allow the readers to really know the characters in the story. Turner actually captures the dialect, cadence and voice of her main character and through it reflects how her character grows and matures in life and as result of her education. Here are my favorites:
there's never any turning back in life
I watched all that and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about the other men I know too.
These books are not trash, I said, as I know they are the opposite. They are the only thing I wanted in my life more than I could name. They are the pearls in my hair and scarlet velvet gowns but I could not say that out loud because they would think I was touched.
the real beauty of a person ... is their spirit and good and simple ways
...children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives.
There is no outrunning fear,...it comes on you and you have to face it.
Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at the place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone.
A friendly silence can speak between two who will walk together a long way...
Education doesn't keep a person from being a fool, and the lack of it doesn't keep a person being intelligent.
We are driving away, and I look back over my shoulder with a strange feeling of parting. It is not a lonely feeling, but just as am I always sad to close the cover on a book, I feel I have finished with this part of my life and will have to begin a new book.
If tiredness could be measured in buckets I am a deep well of tiredness.
If I'm riding a horse and get thrown, it's just a matter of getting back on. And if I'm fighting for my life, there's only living and dying to choose from. But taking that test, that's like showing other people the inside of your thoughts, and just waiting for them to say wrong, wrong, wrong, and you can have thought that seems right but since you never went to school, maybe it isn't.
My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop and read it.
I want them to know that I love you and just how much, too. And that I don't leave you because that feeling's not there, but I stay alive because it is.
there's never any turning back in life
I watched all that and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about the other men I know too.
These books are not trash, I said, as I know they are the opposite. They are the only thing I wanted in my life more than I could name. They are the pearls in my hair and scarlet velvet gowns but I could not say that out loud because they would think I was touched.
the real beauty of a person ... is their spirit and good and simple ways
...children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives.
There is no outrunning fear,...it comes on you and you have to face it.
Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at the place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone.
A friendly silence can speak between two who will walk together a long way...
Education doesn't keep a person from being a fool, and the lack of it doesn't keep a person being intelligent.
We are driving away, and I look back over my shoulder with a strange feeling of parting. It is not a lonely feeling, but just as am I always sad to close the cover on a book, I feel I have finished with this part of my life and will have to begin a new book.
If tiredness could be measured in buckets I am a deep well of tiredness.
If I'm riding a horse and get thrown, it's just a matter of getting back on. And if I'm fighting for my life, there's only living and dying to choose from. But taking that test, that's like showing other people the inside of your thoughts, and just waiting for them to say wrong, wrong, wrong, and you can have thought that seems right but since you never went to school, maybe it isn't.
My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop and read it.
I want them to know that I love you and just how much, too. And that I don't leave you because that feeling's not there, but I stay alive because it is.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Tongue Fu! How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict by Sam Horn
I read this because I'm trying to master the art of positive talk, particularly for my students. Sam Horn uses a lot of quotes from a variety of sources, but I think this one might be hers:
"Commit to using more positive images and you can climb out of those self-made dungeons and see the world as the wonder it is."
Although I don't think this next one is an original thought, because I have seen it on posters, I do think it's worth repeating.
"The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent for good reason."
"Commit to using more positive images and you can climb out of those self-made dungeons and see the world as the wonder it is."
Although I don't think this next one is an original thought, because I have seen it on posters, I do think it's worth repeating.
"The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent for good reason."
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