Gleanings from My Readings

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"
---Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice

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“We need to have the courage to say obesity is not funny, vulgarity is not amusing, insolent children and submissive parents are not the characters we want to admire and emulate. Flippancy and sarcasm are not the only ways in which conversation can be conducted.

If the emperor is standing in my living room stripped to the buff, nothing should prevent me from saying that since he has no clothes on, he is not ready for public congress.”
---Maya Angelou, in Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

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“The complexity, paradox, and gentleness of thick, lived religion can elude the calculus of politics and journalism.”
---Krista Tippett, in Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It

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Mr. Hardcastle: I love everything that’s old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy, (taking her hand) you’ll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.
---Oliver Goldsmith, in his play She Stoops to Conquer (1771)

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From Patricia Waters’ poem “Housework”:

“and I am thinking how my mama had to light
a fire under me for me to do anything around the house,
nose always in a book—exasperation in her voice,
but I heard the pride in it.” (6-9)

From her poem “Charting”:

“Is taboo the thing forbidden
or the act of forbidding?
Is it that I cannot look
or what I cannot look upon?” (10-13)

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From Robert Burns’ poem “A Prayer in the Prospect of Death”:

“Thou knowest that Thou hast formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list’ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.” (9-12)

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From Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar”:

“For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face,
When I have crossed the bar.” (13-16)

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Happy Reading!