“Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.”
“These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.”
“If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."
"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves--they're good things to have, but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.”
“No rich man can walk through the eye of a needle.”
“It can't beat us!" Pa said.
"Can't it, Pa?" Laura asked stupidly.
"No," said Pa. "It's got to quit sometime and we don't. It can't lick us. We won't give up."
Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.”
“It was so wonderful to be there, safe at home, sheltered from the winds and the cold. Laura thought that this must be a little like heaven, where the weary are at rest.”
“Mr. Edwards admired the well-built, pleasant house and heartily enjoyed the good dinner. But he said he was going on West with the train when it pulled out. Pa could not persuade him to stay longer.
"I'm aiming to go far West in the spring," he said. "This here, country, it's too settled up for me. The politicians are a-swarming in already, and ma'am if'n there's any worse pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians. Why, they'll tax the lining out'n a man's pockets to keep up these here county-seat towns..."
"Feller come along and taxed me last summer. Told me I got to put in every last thing I had. So I put in Tom and Jerry, my horses, at fifty dollars apiece, and my oxen yoke, Buck and Bright, I put in at fifty, and my cow at thirty five.
'Is that all you got?' he says. Well I told him I'd put in five children I reckoned was worth a dollar apiece.
'Is that all?' he says. 'How about your wife?' he says.
'By Mighty!' I says to him. 'She says I don't own her and I don't aim to pay no taxes on her,' I says. And I didn't.”
“Politicians, they take pleasure a-prying into a man's affairs and I aimed to please 'em.”
“Laura said faintly, 'I thought God takes care of us.'
'He does,' Pa said, 'so far as we do what's right. And He gives us a conscience and brains to know what's right. But He leaves it to us to do as we please. That's the difference between us and everything else in creation.”
“Then the sun peeped over the edge of the prairie and the whole world glittered. Every tiniest thing glittered rosy toward the sun and pale blue toward the sky, and all along every blade of grass ran rainbow sparkles.”
“Why, I guess you can,” Ma said doubtfully. She did not like to see women working in the fields. Only foreigners did that. Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men’s work.”
“Another problem with the official definitions of terror is that it follows from them that the US is a leading terrorist state.”
“You will think you take generous views of her; but you will never begin to know through what a strange sea of feeling she passed before she accepted you. As she stood there in front of you the other day, she plunged into it. She said 'Why not?' to something which, a few hours earlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about on a thousand gathered prejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked where she had never looked hitherto.”
“You fainted," I told Tank.
"I did not," Tank said. "That's a lie.”
“There are some things that are neither right nor wrong. You can’t have rules laid down for. Would you understand that?” “Yes,” Clare said immediately, “I would. Like the Holy Ghost.” “Like what?” “Like the Holy Ghost. We have to believe in Him without understanding Him. He’s not a bird and He’s not a great wind. He’s something though, and that should be enough without understanding it.” “I don’t think that’s the same at all,” said Agnes, troubled. “But if it helps you to understand the problems of trade in a small town, then for heaven’s sake, use it.”
“When we are finished the little boy walks over to me and looks up at my chest. Then he reaches up and cups my breast in his hand. The mother comes over and does the same thing with my other breast. Yes I am the same I nod. Look. I pull up my shirt and unhook my bra. My breasts pop out and they both smile.
I think about the Zapotec village in Mexico where I was not accepted until I was wearing their clothes and the Balinese ceremonies I would never have attended in anything but a kebaya and a sarong. I smile when I realize that if I were to live here I would walk around topless. If I weren't with three westerners I would do it right now.”
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