How to Fly: In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons

by Barbara Kingsolver

Anything left undone you can slip like a cloth bag of marbles into the hands of a child who will be none the wiser. Imagine your joy on rising. Repeat as necessary.

Praise the careless syntax of a life where, through steady misuse, a noun grows feet: it turtles and outfoxes and one day, with no one watching, steps out as a brand-new verb.

Gather up all the magazines and catalogues in your house—those hungry girls in expensive clothes. Put them all inside your refrigerator.

By the powers vested in hearsay, your marriage is now oil and water. Some of your friends will choose to drink the oil.

Sometimes you have to stand on an incline where things look possible. Or a line you drew yourself.

Fossilized on their upturned faces we see the belief that anyone would recognize: in one more minute we will breathe again. As