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."
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Bible Said It First
I believe William Shakespeare paraphrased this passage from the Bible in his play "The Merchant of Venice" and I ran across it in Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice".
"...mercy has a double blessing, it blessed him that gave, and him that received it"
"...mercy has a double blessing, it blessed him that gave, and him that received it"
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
"Hennie made life come alive - bein with her was like bein with fun."
It's surprising that out of this entire book, which tells the story behind the first human cells to be grown in a culture (and are still being grown today), that was the quote which struck me. It paints such a picture in my mind. Maybe that's why I liked this book so much. The entire book was so well written.
I had no plans to read this book, in spite of all the accolades it received. I just didn't think it would interest me. Then my friend picked it for the book club that I had recently been invited to and I really wanted to be able to participate. As it turned out I really enjoyed this book.
Skloot does an excellent job of telling a human story interwoven with science facts. I felt the heart and soul of the Lacks family while I was reading the book and I learned some science along the way. I highly recommend this book.
It's surprising that out of this entire book, which tells the story behind the first human cells to be grown in a culture (and are still being grown today), that was the quote which struck me. It paints such a picture in my mind. Maybe that's why I liked this book so much. The entire book was so well written.
I had no plans to read this book, in spite of all the accolades it received. I just didn't think it would interest me. Then my friend picked it for the book club that I had recently been invited to and I really wanted to be able to participate. As it turned out I really enjoyed this book.
Skloot does an excellent job of telling a human story interwoven with science facts. I felt the heart and soul of the Lacks family while I was reading the book and I learned some science along the way. I highly recommend this book.
Mary Lamb
The Devil Kissed Her: The Story of Mary Lamb by Kathy Watson covers a lot of territory. Not only do you learn about Mary Lamb, co-author of Tales from Shakespeare, but also about how mental illness in the late 1700's to early 1800's was dealt with.
When I was reading this book I also read an article in the Wall Street Journal by Nassir Ghaemi a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the director of the Mood Disorders program at Tufts Medical Center. Ghaemi's article discusses why, in times of crisis, those who are mentally ill may become the greatest leaders. He sites two traits of the mentally ill that may be the reason for this. Mental illnesses, such as depression, have been shown to "encourage traits of both realism and empathy".
In spite of the fact that she murdered her mother, that is exactly what struck me about Mary Lamb. Both empathy and gentleness show in her writing. This was not typical of children's stories during that period of time. In Mary's group of stories titled Mrs. Leicester's School, she has a story titled "The Sailor Uncle" from which this quote is taken:
"let it be a lesson to you to be as kind as possible to those you love; remember, when they are gone from you, you will never think you had been kind enough."
Mary also demonstrated her ability to see the world more realistically. Watson points out that Mary probably wouldn't have considered herself a feminist, but she saw the need for girls to be trained for jobs in which they could support themselves if they did not marry. Mary wrote:
"The parents of female children, who were known to be destined from their birth to maintain themselves through the whole course of their lives with like certainty as their sons are, would feel it a duty incumbent on themselves to strengthen the minds, and even the bodily constitutions of their girls...by an education which...might enable them to follow some occupation..."
As a young woman, Mary was actually trained to sew the mantua, but she was not well suited to this business. It paid low wages, had long hours and tended to ruin a woman's eyesight. It also appears that Mary was much to intelligent to settle for this. Mary was lucky in that she was able to earn some money through her writing and her brother Charles was devoted to caring for her. As Watson points out:
"What moves us in the lives of Mary and Charles Lamb is the hard work they both put into not being defeated by the painful circumstances of their lives."
Isn't this a good lesson for us all?
When I was reading this book I also read an article in the Wall Street Journal by Nassir Ghaemi a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the director of the Mood Disorders program at Tufts Medical Center. Ghaemi's article discusses why, in times of crisis, those who are mentally ill may become the greatest leaders. He sites two traits of the mentally ill that may be the reason for this. Mental illnesses, such as depression, have been shown to "encourage traits of both realism and empathy".
In spite of the fact that she murdered her mother, that is exactly what struck me about Mary Lamb. Both empathy and gentleness show in her writing. This was not typical of children's stories during that period of time. In Mary's group of stories titled Mrs. Leicester's School, she has a story titled "The Sailor Uncle" from which this quote is taken:
"let it be a lesson to you to be as kind as possible to those you love; remember, when they are gone from you, you will never think you had been kind enough."
Mary also demonstrated her ability to see the world more realistically. Watson points out that Mary probably wouldn't have considered herself a feminist, but she saw the need for girls to be trained for jobs in which they could support themselves if they did not marry. Mary wrote:
"The parents of female children, who were known to be destined from their birth to maintain themselves through the whole course of their lives with like certainty as their sons are, would feel it a duty incumbent on themselves to strengthen the minds, and even the bodily constitutions of their girls...by an education which...might enable them to follow some occupation..."
As a young woman, Mary was actually trained to sew the mantua, but she was not well suited to this business. It paid low wages, had long hours and tended to ruin a woman's eyesight. It also appears that Mary was much to intelligent to settle for this. Mary was lucky in that she was able to earn some money through her writing and her brother Charles was devoted to caring for her. As Watson points out:
"What moves us in the lives of Mary and Charles Lamb is the hard work they both put into not being defeated by the painful circumstances of their lives."
Isn't this a good lesson for us all?
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Sophie and the Rising Sun
This book was so poignant and poetic and Augusta Trobaugh did an excellent job of capturing the different voices represented in the characters. Here are my picks:
"Because the sky that's over where the river and the ocean come together is very beautiful - very different - in a special way. And I just can't seem to get it right on the paper."
Mr. Otto wiped his brush and put it away before he responded. "Perhaps," he ventured, "that's why it is so beautiful - because it is beyond capturing."
Somehow, it was all becoming more than she could think about, so that she felt as if she were dividing into two - like an amoeba - one cell of her wanting nothing more than to be with him forever, the other crying for solitude so that she could taste this most delicious reality. Every wonderful drop of it. Feel every feeling. Taste every joy.
High above them, the endless heavens, the multitude of stars, some of them so far away that they could only guess their glitterings, and here they stood on the sandy bottom of eternity, and at the last, it was only his firm hand that kept her from soaring like an everlasting meteor into the heavens.
"We've all got funny things about us. Places inside us that's specially tender - little sore spots, you might say."
"Because the sky that's over where the river and the ocean come together is very beautiful - very different - in a special way. And I just can't seem to get it right on the paper."
Mr. Otto wiped his brush and put it away before he responded. "Perhaps," he ventured, "that's why it is so beautiful - because it is beyond capturing."
Somehow, it was all becoming more than she could think about, so that she felt as if she were dividing into two - like an amoeba - one cell of her wanting nothing more than to be with him forever, the other crying for solitude so that she could taste this most delicious reality. Every wonderful drop of it. Feel every feeling. Taste every joy.
High above them, the endless heavens, the multitude of stars, some of them so far away that they could only guess their glitterings, and here they stood on the sandy bottom of eternity, and at the last, it was only his firm hand that kept her from soaring like an everlasting meteor into the heavens.
"We've all got funny things about us. Places inside us that's specially tender - little sore spots, you might say."
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