selected quotes from recently read books on my shelves

"And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."  |  John Steinbeck, East of Eden, p. 6

"So much held in heart in a life. So much held in heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end. . . . We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart."  |  Brian Doyle, The Wet Engine, p. 66

"A good night's sleep, or a ten-minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine, Doug. You listen to Tom Spaulding, M.D."  |  Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine, p. 156

"But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are."  |  Mary Oliver, Going to Walden, New and Selected Poems Vol. 1, p. 239