Elizabeth Brundage · 400 pages
Rating: (6.6K votes)
“Her mother had told her that when she was a girl. Whenever you’re in trouble, just remember you’re your own best friend.”
“There was no disguise for real love, she thought, and suddenly understood all that she did not have.”
“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it.”
“Inness painted from memory, which is to say that he didn't paint what he saw, but what he remembered. There's a difference. He believed memory was a lens to the soul. It's not the details that matter - the veins on a leaf, say- so much as the implied detail, such as the changing light, the wind, the lone peasant in the distance the sense that something else is going on, some deeper possibilitly ....”
“Beauty depends on the unseen, George quoted the artist, the visible upon the invisible.”
“Questa è la fattoria Hale.
Ecco la vecchia stalla per la mungitura, l’entrata buia che dice Vieni a cercarmi.
Ecco la banderuola, la catasta di legna.
Ecco la casa, echeggiante di storie.
È presto. Il falco vola lento nel cielo sgombro. Una sottile piuma blu volteggia nel vuoto. L’aria è fredda, limpida. La casa è silenziosa, come la cucina, il divano di velluto blu, la piccola tazza da tè bianca.
Da sempre la fattoria canta per noi, le sue famiglie perdute, i suoi soldati e le mogli. Durante la guerra, quando arrivarono con le baionette, entrando con la forza, gli stivali infangati sulle scale. Patrioti. Banditi. Mariti. Padri. Dormivano nei letti freddi. Razziavano la cantina in cerca di barattoli di pesche sciroppate e barbabietole da zucchero. Accendevano grandi fuochi nel campo, e le fiamme si contorcevano, schioccando alte verso il cielo. Fuochi che ridevano. Le facce calde brillavano e le mani erano in tasca, al riparo. Arrostivano un maiale e strappavano la carne dolce e rosea dall’osso. Dopo, si succhiavano via il grasso dalle dita, un sapore familiare, strano.
Ce ne sono stati altri – molti – che hanno rubato, smantellato e saccheggiato. Perfino i tubi di rame, perfino le mattonelle di ceramica. Quello che potevano prendere, prendevano. Hanno lasciato solo i muri, i pavimenti spogli. Il cuore pulsante in cantina.
Noi aspettiamo. Siamo pazienti. Aspettiamo notizie. Aspettiamo che ci venga detto qualcosa. Il vento sta provando a farlo. Gli alberi ondeggiano. È la fine di qualcosa; lo sentiamo. Presto sapremo.”
“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it”
“Something kept them together, frustration possibly. Like they were two parts of a troubling equation that neither could find the answer to. It was out there somewhere, in infinity, she often thought. Maybe they’d never find it.”
“She said most people were good on the inside, where it mattered. You have to give them a chance to show their goodness, she used to say. Some people need more time, that’s all.”
“There are two types of people in this world. People who hate clowns...and clowns. -Bobby Pendragon”
“Jack missed the normality of merely reading the paper.”
“It is a dangerous thing to bring a dream to life....I have watched my deepest, dearest hopes take shape, and I am not entirely sure I like the shape they have taken.”
“Dr. dear," said Susan. "I never could abide such a man in the pulpit every Sunday." "Then Mr. Rogers came and he was like a chip in porridge—neither harm nor good," resumed Miss Cornelia. "But if he had preached like Peter and Paul it would have profited him nothing, for that was the day old Caleb Ramsay's sheep strayed into church and gave a loud 'ba-a-a' just as he announced his text. Everybody laughed, and poor Rogers had no chance after that. Some thought we ought to call Mr. Stewart, because he was so well educated. He could read the New Testament in five languages.”
“Today, we are the only people who are more likely to own a professional sports team than to play for one.”
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