Joel Verkler

“The fire on the mountain.” That was Anna. “Alchemy,” she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.”
“Singing?” Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.” 
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean…?” began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.”
― Dave Eggers, What Is the What

“The man who has never desired or experienced anything base and bad is not a man of restraint, because he has never had to master anything to compose himself.”
― Robin Waterfield, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists

“fast. Get those months, days, hours, minutes out of the way, it can’t be quick enough.”
― Judith Guest, Ordinary People