Mary

“Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can't bless it, get ready to make it new.”
― Marge Piercy, The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme

“For myself, hand on heart, those things never bothered me. It is one of the graces of married life that for some magical reason we always look the same to each other. Even our friends never seem to grow old. What a boon that is, and never suspected by me when I was young. But I suppose, otherwise, what would we do? There has never been a person in an old people’s home that hasn’t looked around dubiously at the other inhabitants. They are the old ones, they are the club that no one wants to join. But we are never old to ourselves. That is because at close of day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

“Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

“There is seldom a difficulty with religion where there is friendship.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture