Janisse Ray · 224 pages
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“I carry the landscape inside me like an ache. The story of who I am cannot be severed from the story of the flatwoods.”
― Janisse Ray, quote from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
“Turning back to embrace the past has been a long, slow lesson not only in self-esteem, but in patriotism—pride in homeland, heritage. It has taken a decade to whip the shame, to mispronounce words and shun grammar when mispronunciation and misspeaking are part of my dialect, to own the bad blood. What I come from has made me who I am.”
― Janisse Ray, quote from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
“I think of my own life, how it embraces a great quest to know every cog of nature--the names of oaks and ferns, the secret lives of birds, the taste of venison and Ogeechee lime, wax myrtle's smell and rattlesnake's, the contour of bobcat tracks, the number of barred owl cackles, the feel of Okefenokee Swamp water on my skin under a blistering sun.
I search for a vital knowledge of the land that my father could not teach me, as he was not taught, and guidance to know and honor it, as he was not guided, as if this will shield me from the errancies of the mind, or bring me back from that dark territory should I happen to wander there. I search as if there were peace to be found.”
― Janisse Ray, quote from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
“My homeland is about as ugly as a place gets. There's nothing in south Georgia, people will tell you, except straight, lonely roads, one-horse towns, sprawling farms, and tracts of planted pines. It’s flat, monotonous, used-up, hotter than hell in summer and cold enough in winter that orange trees won’t grow. No mountains, no canyons, no rocky streams, no waterfalls. The rivers are muddy, wide and flat, like somebody’s feet. The coastal plain lacks the stark grace of the desert or the umber panache of the pampas”
― Janisse Ray, quote from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
“The moral of the story, Son," Pun would say, "is Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off on your heels."
Of all lessons, that one I never learned and I hope I never do. My heart daily grows new foliage, always adding people, picking up new heartaches like a wool coat collects cockleburs and beggar's-lice seeds. It gets fuller and fuller as I walk slow as a sloth, carrying all the pain Pun and Frank and so many others tried to walk from. Especially the pain of the lost forest. Sometimes there is no leaving, no looking westward for another promised land. We have to nail our shoes to the kitchen floor and unload the burden of our heart. We have to set to the task of repairing the damage done by and to us.”
― Janisse Ray, quote from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Janisse Ray
Born place: in The United States
Born date February 2, 1962
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“Aplinkiniais keliais vaikšto tie, kurie slapstosi. Tu neturi ko slėpti. Įsikalk tai į galvą. Tu turi teisę ateiti ir išeiti, kada man patinka”
― Herbjørg Wassmo, quote from Dina's Book
“Vanity is a defensive quality. it contains an element of fear.”
― Don DeLillo, quote from The Names
“What a glorious boy
he had meant to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great
mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But
Solomon was right; there is no second chance, not for most of us.
When we reach the window it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up
for life.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens / Peter and Wendy
“10. WINDLESTRAWS. KEΦAΔH I WINDLESTRAWS The Abyss of Hallucinations has Law and Reason; but in Truth there is no bond between the Toys of the Gods. This Reason and Law is the Bond of the Great Lie. Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations. There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men call Silence is Its Speech. This Abyss is also called "Hell", and "The Many." Its name is "Consciousness", and "The Universe", among men. But THAT which neither is silent, nor speaks, rejoices therein.”
― Aleister Crowley, quote from The Book of Lies
“I feel like there's something terrible and wonderful and amazing that's just beyond my grasp. I have dreams about it. I do dream, by the way. It hovers over me at odd moments. And then it's gone. I feel like I'm always on the brink of something that never arrives. I want to either have it or be free of it.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from Specimen Days
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