“Son, that's a pretty hard question to answer. But I do believe that any wish you make can come true if you help the wish. I don't think that the Lord meant for our lives to be so simple and easy that every time we wanted something, all we had to do was wish for it and we'd get it. I don't believe that at all. If that were true, there would be a lot of lazy people in this old world. No one would be working. Everyone would be wishing for what they needed or wanted.
"Papa," I asked, "how can you help a wish?"
"Oh, there are a lot of ways," Papa said. "Hard work, faith, patience, and determination. I think prayer and really believing in your wish can help more than anything else.”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“didn’t know why I was holding my breath because I knew that the old saying of how you could hold your breath and nothing would sting you was pure hogwash. I had tried that before and it hadn’t worked at all. Rowdy would have absolutely nothing to do with anything that”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“We’re going to build a big pen out of that chicken wire,” he said. “It’ll have a top on it and a door with a snap latch. We’ll put those coconuts right in the center of the pen and leave the door open. Then we’ll tie the binder twine to the door and run it back through the pen and out into the brush a little way. When those monkeys go into the pen after those coconuts, we’ll pull the binder twine and latch the door. What do you think of that idea?” Before I answered Grandpa, I closed my eyes and drew a picture of the pen in my mind.”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“Daisy smiled and said, “Jay Berry, you won’t die. You may think you will, but you won’t. In a day or two, you’ll be as good as new, I hope.” “You’re just saying that because you heard Papa say it,” I said. “No, I’m not!” Daisy said. “I’m saying it because I’m a nurse, and nurses are supposed to cheer up their patients.” I knew all too well that once Daisy had gotten into one of her Red Cross nursing spells, it was ridiculous to even think of trying to argue her out of it. So I just groaned, closed my eyes, and sat there while”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“looked over to where I had dropped my net. There it was right where I had dropped it; wide open and not a monkey in it. I couldn’t believe it. How on earth could the little monkeys have gotten out of the net? My first thought was that the yellow ring had gotten tangled in a bush, and while the monkeys were flouncing”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“I was still a boy when I left the Ozarks, only sixteen years old. Since that day, I’ve left my footprints in many lands: the frozen wastelands of the Arctic, the bush country of Old Mexico, and the steaming jungles of Yucatán. Throughout my life, I’ve been a lover of the great outdoors. I have built campfires in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and hunted wild turkey in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I have climbed the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, and hunted bull elk in the primitive area of Idaho. I can truthfully say that, regardless of where I have roamed or wandered, I have always looked for the fairy ring. I have never found one, but I’ll keep looking and hoping. If the day ever comes that I walk up to that snow-white circle, I’ll step into the center of it, kneel down, and make one wish, for in my heart I believe in the legend of the rare fairy ring.”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“What are all those people doing under the trees?” I asked. “Those are students,” Grandpa said. “They’re probably studying their lessons. They have their classes inside those buildings.” “That wouldn’t be a bad place to go to school,” I said. “Instead of having to stay in the schoolhouse to study, you could just go outside and sit under a tree. I think I’d like that.” “I hope I live to see the day when you go to college here,” Grandpa said. “Do you think you’d like it?”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“Grandpa,” I asked, “what good’s it going to do us, knowing his name?” “It might do a lot of good,” Grandpa said. “This trainer says that if you could make friends with that monkey he would probably do anything you wanted him to do.” “Make friends with him!” I said. “Grandpa, I don’t”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“When I saw my little sister kneeling in the center of that snow-white circle, and that old crutch laying on the ground beside her, I forgot about ponies and .22s. I wanted my little sister to get that old leg of hers fixed up. I wanted that more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. That was going to be my wish. Once”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
Wilson Rawls
Born place: in Scraper, Oklahoma, The United States
Born date September 24, 1913
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“Sometimes I almost pity them. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame can touch me. Because I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing, I am hardly human any more. I am the French Lieutenant’s Whore.”
― John Fowles, quote from The French Lieutenant's Woman
“I turned to leave and paused before the gap in the ruined wall. "One last thing, Your Majesty. I'd like a name I can put into my report, something shorter than typing out 'The Leader of the Southern Shapechanger Faction.' What should I call you?"
"Lord."
I rolled my eyes.
He shrugged. "It's short.”
― Ilona Andrews, quote from Magic Bites
“What you call passion is not a spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward and isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen. In argument, for example, they will not shout or wave their arms. But, I assure you, they are nevertheless, burning with subdued fires.”
― Hermann Hesse, quote from The Glass Bead Game
“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”
“But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”
“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, quote from The Song of Achilles
“You need to face what you're running from ”
― Melissa Marr, quote from Ink Exchange
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