Politics as First Rate Theater

Laura decided there was an amazing similarity between a political rally, the circus, and a camp meeting.  From the stump and the pulpit and the center ring came the promise of holy crusades in which the meek would inherit the earth.  "It's wonderful," Laura said to Mr. Wright.  "I love it. It's all so familiar.  Like Ive been here before."

"First rate theater, " the editor said.  "It would be second-rate except it's so human.

Hill Country
Janice Woods Windle

Straining Bones

Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer

Wisdom or Cowardice

Thin-lipped Wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

All Life is a Matter of Possiblity

I wondered for the first time where I myself would go next, and , if I went there, if that path might branch as elm trees do and as rivers do and go elsewhere.  Would I ever come back to the place where I started?  What portion of my lot would be choice and what part accident?

I realized that my life itself was then all a matter of possibility.  Who knew where I would go next or with whom, or with whom I would meet? Yet some one thing would happen and not another.

I would have liked for the moaning of the wind to be louder; I would have liked for the rain to drum more furiously.  I wanted to be closer to those living elements.

Who does not like to fall asleep with the rain beating on the roof and the wind rubbing the outer walls, while oneself is dry and warm in comfortable bed?

How strange that sometimes things as well as people deserve some formal farewell.

Assembled from Ahabs Wife, or the Star Gazer
Sena Jeter Naslud