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men were no more the kings of all things than the bees that swarmed over the mountain in midsummer.
men were no more the kings of all things than the bees that swarmed over the mountain in midsummer.
He believed that every creature belonged to God equally, a product of divine love and wisdom. Man and beast, insect and tree, all of it reflected the face of the Maker.
If I believed in a god, I’d believe this, too.
Every tree was perfect, unlike human beings,
John had vowed never to eat another living creature or to cause pain to any being.
Me too. I quit eating anything that had had eyes, (except potatoes) the day I left my parents’ home. If I could figure out how to survive without plants (which scream at a pitch higher than our ears can hear, when plucked or cut) I’d quit eating them also.
Emily had read that injured bears sobbed like human beings, and that gave her some comfort.
There were rabbits in the yard. They too cried like human beings when trapped.
From then on when she thought of anguish, Mattie would think of the way he had dipped his head to glance away, as if the world was much too vast and wide, and the only thing contained within it was loneliness.
Thousands of people came to see Topsy die. My mother thought the desire to view such anguish was a sign of the innate cruelty of human beings.
It’s true we are the only animals who enjoy being cruel. If there actually was a god or goddess, it would exterminate us.
She said she wanted a man like that, someone who understood sorrow, not someone who caused it.
Sara had told me that a woman who could rescue herself was a woman who would never be in need.
she loved horses. She had a natural affinity with them and said people who used a whip when they rode should be whipped themselves.
I love horses, too. And feel the same way about people who whip them. I’m frequently holding myself back from whipping those people myself.
I heard something escape from her mouth, her soul perhaps, rushing upward.
I heard a sound like this when my father died. I don’t believe in gods or heaven or hell, but I wish I could. I’d love to think I’d see or feel him again in one way or another when I die.
He told me that we could not begin to understand the mysteries of our faith, and I wondered why he assumed I had any faith at all.
Everyone in my family has donated his or her used-up body to a medical school, for some student to work on and learn from, so I’ve been spared having to listen to any religious person prattle on the platitudes. (I’ve already done the paperwork for my body to be used in the same way.)
“Don’t worry. I’m not afraid of words.”
When you read, the time flies by,
I learned to read when I was three. Reading has been one of my greatest pleasures all my life. I remember the first book I read by myself as if it were yesterday: “In a green and grassy jungle full of howlie grawly game lived a bold and mighty hunter Howdy Doody was his name…” I can’t imagine why I had that book. Neither I nor anyone in my family have any use for hunting or hunters.
At first it seemed that he believed Sara would return, but as the years went by I understood that his loyalty asked for no reward, and that love comes in unexpected forms. His wish was small, as hers had been—merely to be beside her.
The bank had closed down, and the banker’s family had been forced to move into a cottage behind the church; they kept up the grounds in exchange for shelter and food. The leather factory was abandoned, as were many of the mills along the river. In cities everywhere people were starving. In New York, hundreds of shacks had been set up in Central Park. In Albany, riots broke out when people grew hungry. The citizens of Blackwell, Massachusetts, were luckier than most. Many had their own gardens. They stitched their own clothes, owned their properties outright. Still, the disaster of the stock
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Seems as though the more things change, the more they stay the same. As if every generation thinks the world is going to hell.
The futures they had expected had been rewritten by some greater hand, and no one had the slightest idea of what fate might bring next.
“It’s called a mitzvah,” Ben explained. “It’s a person’s responsibility to help those around him.”
“Whatever good you do comes back to you in some way.”
And vice versa.
She was young and attractive, yet she felt her life had not yet begun. Why then did it seem as if it were already over?
There may not be another chance to live, she wrote to her sister. If not now, when?
The only way to fight evil is with joy, Azurine had written. Forget everything we’ve ever been taught.
She had an uncanny ability to gauge who was in need, often appearing at someone’s back door with exactly what they yearned for most: a pot of split pea soup, a bottle of milk, a blanket for an ailing baby, a spray of red phlox from her garden.
“Hard times make for simple minds,”
Ah, so this is why so many Americans are dim-witted.
When she heard children cry, she was always undone.
She would never get her heart’s desire. More than anything, she wanted a child. Find a husband, someone might have told her, get married, have a baby or two—all easily accomplished even in a small town such as Blackwell. But Hannah was not interested in men. She never had been. She refused to speculate on what this might mean, or admit to the crushes she’d been aware of. She only knew that if she didn’t wish to be someone’s wife, she couldn’t have what she yearned for most in this world.
Thank whatever gods may be that we have progressed enough that people don’t have to be a man and a woman couple to have a child. I’ve been quite gloomy about the state of the world, so thinking at least one good thing has happened cheers me up.
“Men.” She sighed. “All is vanity.”
“I only stopped by to wish you luck,” she remarked.
Guess no one ever told her she should say, “Break a leg.” Now I’ll have to take a reading timeout to see why the hell that became a tradition …
this.”
these.
Hannah was about to answer true love, but love alone was never enough.
Now, when Kate came skittering back to the table, they let her take a bite, even though some people might say it was best for children to eat only simple things. In their experience, nothing was simple.
He’d decided he would be ready, whatever his future might bring, whenever it might appear before him. He was prepared to vanish, take chances, disappear if need be. He thought perhaps he was enchanted. He was exceedingly ugly, so ugly he couldn’t look at himself. He’d always known this. People had told him so often enough, and, although he avoided mirrors, he’d glimpsed himself and had come to the conclusion they were correct.
Kate and Henry held hands, but as they walked through town everything looked odd to Kate, the way things do in a dream, or in any place where you know you don’t belong.
It was a decision before it was a question. That was the way things happened in the human world. In our world, a leaf falls one day and we know it’s time. We feel our hearts slowing down. We try to fight it with cold water, bee stings, fresh kills. But the leaf has fallen, the water doesn’t rouse us. When we sleep we dream more than any other creatures. We dream of entirely different lives. We are men and women. We walk and talk in houses, and fields, and farmyards. Leaves mean nothing to us. Thousands can fall and we look the other way. A beautiful woman walks toward us and we fall in love.
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It took Tessa an hour to wake up and at least three cups of black coffee. It wasn’t that she was lazy, it was simply that she was out of sync with the pedestrian everyday world. She was a night owl, often reading until dawn.
“It’s better to burn out beautifully when you’re young.”
