To rid ourselves of our shadows -- who we are -- we must step into either total light or total darkness. Goodness and evil.

He would find his Susie,inside his young son. Give that love to the living.

Alice Sebold

The rite of passage of learning to build a fire that will burn all night with one match is not an insignificant one in my husband's family, and I grew up camping and backpacking. I love to camp.

Sarah Wayne Callies

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind;-- but when a beginning is made-- when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt-- it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.

Jane Austen

If you're already in a hole, it's no use to continue digging.

Roy W. Walters

Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Miguel Angel Ruiz

One must be very particular about telling the truth. Through truth one can realize God.

Ramakrishna

Life is a bitter sweet journey my friend, a bitter sweet journey.

Luellen Hoffman

Grades were important in our house. I was reading by two. My mom would sit there and read with me, read with me, read with me. It was wonderful.

Fergie

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.

Thomas Paine

The more clear you are on what you want, the more power you will have.

Source Unknown

Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.

William Cowper