Life is a rotten lottery.
The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.
We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet
Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, like a fire subsiding. . . . Just this once I wanted to let it rip.
What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.
Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.
Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.
Fate is strange, and our destinies can be shaped by very small decisions.
There are so many lovely cities around the U. S. , around the world, that it's almost impossible to pick one.
You will be judged by what you succeed at gentlemen, not by what you attempt
Your kids inevitably want to move where they had their vacations when they were younger.