The Magic of Ordinary Days Quotes

“Memories are fragile things to hold, but many times, it's what we have.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“I’ve often wondered, even to this day, why during painful times some people seem to step away from themselves and make decisions that fall far out of their usual line of character and behaviour. Perhaps a natural reluctance to sit still is central, or perhaps, like the lesser animals, instinct forces us to go on even if grief has left us not up to the task…. In one fleeting moment, I stripped away the petals of my future, let them catch wind, and fly away”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“He touched me as if I were the curved and delicate handle of a china cup, but he held me tightly just as I was, flesh and blood and full of human flaws and fears. In his arms I wasn't a girl dreaming of sailing the high seas, and I wasn't a farm kid jumping the train, either, but a fully grown woman riding the soft side of a crescent moon.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Sometimes you do find what you're looking for closer than you think”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Livy: Don’t you ever wonder what else is out there…beyond the farm?

Ray: Sometimes

Livy: Aren’t you curious how other people lived?

Ray: I enjoyed the drive, but i like coming back to my place. Sleeping on my land.

Livy: Your land. Ha! Seems every war in human history is about owning a land. I liked the Indian view that we’re just temporary guardians of the land where we lived.

Ray: It’s not temporary to me.

Livy: But your family just owned this land for less than a hundred years. In a span of a history that’s nothing.

Ray: In a span of a life…that’s near everything.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“As a child, when I first heard the story of Creation, I’d closed my eyes and pictured the earth as a ball rolling off the palm of God and into dark space, then drifting around until it found its home in sunny orbit. Never perfect, but ever spinning, and holding on to her course, despite it all.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“In the past, I would’ve listed things such as common interests, mutual attraction, worldliness, and higher education. My freedom above all else. If I had found love, it would have had to be the kind that overwhelmed and overpowered all else.

I passed a hand between Ray and Me. “Once you told me that this,” I said “is a beginning.” I searched his face. "But how do you know, Ray? How do you know it’s the beginning of something good?”

“I know.” His breath was warm on my face as he moved in closer.” Because someday, you’re bound to forgive yourself.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Words of kindness had always been more difficult for me to handle than harsh reprimands. Ever since I had been quite young, I could resist those who went against me, had been able to deny their opinions. My inner strength came from an ability to handle, then separate myself from, adversity. Compassion, however, brought up more raw emotion than judgments could ever stir.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“We’d save up a penny or two, bring them down here, and set them on the tracks. When a train comes, it flattens out that penny, leaving it thin as paper and shaped long, like an egg. But it happens so fast, you can’t see where the train sends that penny flying… We’d look all around, in the sage brush and the prickly pear cactus, until we found them.. And you know what?”

He stopped walking and turned to gaze at me now. “We always found them closer than we thought.”

“After we’d looked all over Creation, we’d find them somewhere near the tracks, after all.”

He said, “Sometimes you do find what you’re looking for closer than you think.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“All over the world, people are looking at the same stars, the same moon, the same sun, every day. Somehow, I didn't feel so isolated when I thought of it that way.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“When I'd headed out here on my wedding day, I hadn't realized I'd bought a ticket to my own history, a different one from studying Akh-en-aten and Horizon-of-the-Aten, maybe, but a living, ongoing one.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Rose spoke up softly beside me. 'It's how you handle the unfairness of life -that's what matters, I think.'...In this city of imprisonment, I had seen faith and optimism, strength and fortitude in the face of adversity.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“At the university the professors who genuinely loved their subjects were always the most interesting teachers. Enthusiasm for a topic made it enticing to others.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“A classroom of students may read the same piece of poetry or the same passage in a novel, and each person may interpret it differently.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“whose duty it was to lead the souls of dead women to paradise.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“Now I could see it. Despite the poise, I could see the suffering in their eyes. I tried to think of something to say, but what? The leaders of our country had determined that Japanese American presence in the coastal states posed a threat to national security. Loyalty had been questioned, and with so many lives and secrets at stake, perhaps most people felt that Congress had made a prudent decision. But I had begun to think they had reacted hastily and irresponsibly toward good citizens. After all, except for the American Indians, we were all immigrants or descendants of immigrants.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“I tried to remember the first time I had heard of Congress’s plans for Japanese American internment. I recalled that my first impression had been one of approval, that certainly we couldn’t chance domestic disloyalty in the face of this terrible world war. But now, as I sat beside Rose and Lorelei and gazed out at this barn—this farm camp, as they called it—I wavered. Certainly these two girls posed no threat to our country. In fact, all the farmworkers seemed to be the most peaceful of people. They had volunteered to help with the harvest, tough physical labor at best, to leave the camp and stay here in conditions little better than those provided for our livestock, all to earn a measly nineteen dollars a month. This was temporary, I kept telling myself. At war’s end, they could return to the homes, businesses, and places in society where they had lived before. I found myself wishing I’d never seen this camp. Perhaps someday, we could all make it back to the places where we started. I didn’t believe it, but I tried to.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“The sunflower is the visage of Clytie, a water nymph who died of a broken heart when her love for the sun god Helius was not returned.” “What happened, Mother?” Abby had asked. “Why did she die?” asked Bea. Mother plumped up the covers about our necks. “Clytie pined away for Helius until she died. Then her arms and legs dissolved and took root in the earth. Her body metamorphosed into a stalk, and her face changed into a sunflower that followed the path of the sun, day after day.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“[Ray to Livvy] Aren't you used to people meaning what they say?”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“But although many a learned woman wanted to deny its importance, even Mother admitted that in our society, beauty was still prized above knowledge and wisdom in a woman.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“It’s only when the wrong leaders come into power that the peace disintegrates,” Lorelei concluded. “If only the leaders of all countries could be women,” I said, and we laughed together at the notion, the impossible nature of it. Then we were silent, each of us lost in our own gnawing thoughts.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“It’s how you handle the unfairness of life—that’s what matters most, I think.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“[Livvy and her father] Neither of us had been as strong as we'd wanted to be.”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days

“[Livvy's Mom to her three daughters.] "Who better to tell my stories to than you girls?”
― Ann Howard Creel, The Magic of Ordinary Days