The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Quotes

“If you want quality, you must work for it. You wake and you strive and you make decisions to sacrifice. An easy life will never bring the kind of satisfaction the soul craves. I despise people who lounge all day as if there weren’t more important ideas than comfort, complacency, and appetite. Stretch yourself! Be industrious! Do something!”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“A year is such an odd packet of time. It seems so ordered: a dozen months, a handful of seasons. Deceptively even. Make no mistake, it will go awry every which way. Balance? Impossible. Control? Not worth mentioning the word. Some days cling and others run, many shifting just enough to incommode but give no great variety. And then out of the pedestrian blue comes an explosion which reduces all plans to smithereens. The reward for making it through? Getting to do it again.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Maybe I’m coming down with something. Like a cold, or an allergy to people in general.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Spring gives us more than we deserve.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“As for how we’ve varied, I would take my path a thousand times over in a thousand lives, however difficult—the art, the colour, the way that light bends gold around my memories, even the unhappy ones. I have known love and lost. I was gifted so much.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Is that not a good deal of extra work?” “What should that matter?” he said as if slamming his words against the table. “We have an opportunity to create order from chaos. One book, one year. Simple. Elegant. Certainly it’s extra work! Fine things, fine ideas, fine people, require work! This entire age is indulgent and selfish and shortsighted, complaining that easy things are not as easy as they’d like.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“there is never time for what one plans to do, only what one does.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“These long days out of doors feel like coming home to a place to which I've always held a key, but was told it should be put away. But, oh! There has been a sovereignty of self in this place--of body, of spirit, of the intangible magic which sews the two together. To shout and run. To lie in tall grasses and watch the wind play the sunlight both true and false. To feel the building threat of rain and watch it crash to earth from the tenuous safety beneath a tree rather than from behind a window.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“You know those rare afternoons when sunlight is slanting across the fields but it's raining? It always feels like such a thing should be impossible, and no matter what else has happened that day, you feel absurdly happy? That is how you look now, thinking of him.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“With the impatience that only comes when advice is perfectly on point.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“There is a lightness that comes after truth is spoken plainly”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“In a manner worthy of awards and accolades in the daydreams of Dormitory A.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“better job of it if you aren’t watching like a circling vulture,” he said. I harrumphed (like Aunt Eugenia). “I wouldn’t eat you in any case, carrion or no,” I repl”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“The truth of the matter is I find myself thinking of him. Pierce. Not Theseus. Often. I like Niall Pierce. I am more than fond of Niall Pierce. When he walks into the room, I want him to come stand beside me. It’s only getting worse, isn’t it? I should have simply ended with, I like Niall Pierce, and saved myself the embarrassment.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“I took my tentative hope with me.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“It can be a terrible task, that of learning to divide the light from dark, for we agonize beneath the weight that someone we care for might be caught in the twilight of our indecision, our ignorance, our selfishness, or our fear.” Finally, he looked at me. “But when I recall that with the light of God comes the abundance of God, I take courage. Virtus Apprime.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“This ruse with Islington is advantageous to your not being left behind, but an actual guardian?” Hawkes shook his head. “That isn’t what you need.” “What is it you think I need?” He looked as if it were obvious. “To remain undaunted.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“I stared at the wrapped book in my hands. The white feather affected me more than I was willing to let on.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“How casually they spoke of what they would do, and when.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“He lifted a hand before him, half shake of a fist, half artistic passion. “If you want quality, you must work for it. You wake and you strive and you make decisions to sacrifice. An easy life will never bring the kind of satisfaction the soul craves. I despise people who lounge all day as if there weren’t more important ideas than comfort, complacency, and appetite. Stretch yourself! Be industrious! Do something!” He was perspiring, his strong grip on the words just shy of a yell. I sat agog.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Truth be told, there are things one wouldn’t wish on one’s worst enemy.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Father had meant to take me, but there is never time for what one plans to do, only what one does.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“If there is one thing I’ve learned from my vicar,” I replied, “it’s that I do not have to explain myself to anyone.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“What does one with a limited library read when melancholy? One attempts to read a dozen chapters from Leviticus for perspective (I wouldn’t say Leviticus was particularly helpful), a passage of Whitman for hope (hope and impatience, more like), and a soliloquy or two by The Bard (What a piece of work is a man, indeed!) before circling back to Isaiah, if necessary. It was necessary.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“We mostly managed protocol one.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Even the tea tastes stale. My entire life digresses.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“It was sweet of Parian, really, and after Pierce nodded and walked through the opened door with nary a glance back, I gave Parian a small smile. He smiled in return. Who would have supposed a year ago that we would be in cahoots?”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Steady on, Emma,” I calmed. “You’ve done much worse. Far worse. And are alive to tell the tale.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Most of us are afraid of the shadow our destiny casts. He didn’t seem to be.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7

“Silence among friends forms a pleasant shape.”
― Beth Brower, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 7