“She thanked God that life was not always winter, that spring always came at last to chase away the cold and heaviness, and to release one to warmth and movement again.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“You women are strange creatures, indeed," he said. "No wonder we men never succeed in understandin' ya. But thanks be to God fer makin' ya the way ya are.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“Number 12, always remember that I love you -both of you."
"Oh, Willie, ya silly goose!”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“Her love for Willie drove her to decide for his happiness. He'd never be happy to admit defeat, to leave his beloved hills and valleys and return back east.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“I shoulda taken ya into town, Missie. Gave ya a chance to see the outside world again, to visit an' chat. I missed yer need, Missie, an'-an' ya never complain-jest let me go on, makin' dumb mistakes right an' left. A sorry-looking bunch of cowpokes, a work-crazy husband an' a baby who can't say more than 'goo' ain't much fer company. Yet ya never, never say a thing 'bout it. I love you, too, Missie-so very much.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“Reckon I'd be lyin' iffen I didn't own up to feelin' a little sore here an' there," Willie said with a grin. "An' thet's all thet yer gonna git me to confess. Full-grown able-bodied man shouldn't be admittin' to even thet. Folks will be thinkin' thet I never worked a day in my life.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“Though unaware of it at that moment, Missie had just made some friends for life. Not one of those men sitting round her tiny soddy would have denied her anything that was in their power to provide. There she sat, just a little scrap of a girlwoman, youthful and pretty, her cheeks glowing with health, her eyes sparkling near tears, her trim figure clothed attractively in a bright calico, the tiny fair-skinned, chubby-cheeked Nathan contentedly in her arms studying her face. That picture was their Christmas gift, one they would remember all their lives.”
― Janette Oke, quote from Love's Long Journey
“Melinda Pratt rides city bus number twelve to her cello lesson, wearing her mother's jean jacket and only one sock. Hallo, world, says Minna. Minna often addresses the world, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. Bus number twelve is her favorite place for watching, inside and out. The bus passes cars and bicycles and people walking dogs. It passes store windows, and every so often Minna sees her face reflection, two dark eyes in a face as pale as a winter dawn. There are fourteen people on the bus today. Minna stands up to count them. She likes to count people, telephone poles, hats, umbrellas, and, lately, earrings. One girl, sitting directly in front of Minna, has seven earrings, five in one ear. She has wisps of dyed green hair that lie like forsythia buds against her neck.
There are, Minna knows, a king, a past president of the United States, and a beauty queen on the bus. Minna can tell by looking. The king yawns and scratches his ear with his little finger. Scratches, not picks. The beauty queen sleeps, her mouth open, her hair the color of tomatoes not yet ripe. The past preside of the United States reads Teen Love and Body Builder's Annual.
Next to Minna, leaning against the seat, is her cello in its zippered canvas case. Next to her cello is her younger brother, McGrew, who is humming. McGrew always hums. Sometimes he hums sentences, though most often it comes out like singing. McGrew's teachers do not enjoy McGrew answering questions in hums or song. Neither does the school principal, Mr. Ripley. McGrew spends lots of time sitting on the bench outside Mr. Ripley's office, humming.
Today McGrew is humming the newspaper. First the headlines, then the sports section, then the comics. McGrew only laughs at the headlines.
Minna smiles at her brother. He is small and stocky and compact like a suitcase. Minna loves him. McGrew always tells the truth, even when he shouldn't. He is kind. And he lends Minna money from the coffee jar he keeps beneath his mattress.
Minna looks out the bus window and thinks about her life. Her one life. She likes artichokes and blue fingernail polish and Mozart played too fast. She loves baseball, and the month of March because no one else much likes March, and every shade of brown she has ever seen. But this is only one life. Someday, she knows, she will have another life. A better one. McGrew knows this, too. McGrew is ten years old. He knows nearly everything. He knows, for instance, that his older sister, Minna Pratt, age eleven, is sitting patiently next to her cello waiting to be a woman.”
― Patricia MacLachlan, quote from The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
“poor Jan alone. When she noticed I was seriously date-delayed, Christine started trying”
― Claire Cook, quote from Must Love Dogs
“Caring too much leads to heartbreak. Wanting something too much leads to despair. The Buddhists probably have it right, that the root of all suffering is desire, but I don't know how to stop feeling these things. They are feelings. You have to feel them.”
― Andra Brynn, quote from Where I End and You Begin
“An ache stayed inside her. And a faint reverberating hum of something close to joy lived on the outer edges of her memory, some kind of longing that had been answered once and was simply not answered anymore.”
― Elizabeth Strout, quote from Amy and Isabelle
“Love's empire is this globe and all mankind; the most refined and the most degraded, the cleverest and the most stupid, are all liable to become his faithful subjects. He can alike command the devotion of an archbishop and a South-Sea Islander, of the most immaculate maiden lady (whatever her age) and of the savage Zulu girl. From the pole to the equator, and from the equator to the further pole, there is no monarch like Love.”
― H. Rider Haggard, quote from Dawn
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