literary thought

Reading taught me that a man's life is his own responsibility, his own creation. Blaming others is a waste of time. No one can make you happy if you're determined to be miserable.

I understood, finally, that blood ties people biologically, but not emotionally.

Just remember that, although we were flawed, we were marvelous, too.

Your love was enough.

Years later, I realized I had prayed the wrong prayer. I should've asked God to send me to you, but I didn't. So I spent years waiting for you—while you've spent a lifetime waiting for me.

I've spent a lifetime wondering if she would've loved me. But of course she would've. She was my mother.

Grandma would've been proud, I thought. She'd wanted a high school graduate in the family, and now there was a college grad, too. She'd heard—and believed—that education could provide a better life than the one she'd had, and she'd wanted someone in the family to experience it. From the looks of things, it would be you.

The day Esau died, a part of me died with him. If church folks are right, I'll see him soon and I'll be happy again. If they're wrong, I'll have no peace in eternity. No peace at all.

'You promised me You'd heal him! I told You I'd do anything You want. I thought prayer changes things?' It didn't that day. I've never forgiven God. I never will."

'I do not mind some infidelity, my dear. If it is respectfully done. And one does not leave evidence.' The way he said it, I realized he had slept with people outside our marriage, and I wondered if any woman was ever really safe from men like Max and Don. I thought of how many women out there thought they could prevent their husbands from cheating if only they were as gorgeous as Evelyn Hugo. But it never stopped any man I loved.

'What am I going to do without you?' This loaded question is the reason I didn't want anyone to know I was dying. There are questions I can't answer. I cannot tell you how you will survive without me. I cannot tell you how to mourn me.

Which Jane Austen book I should read first? Pride and Prejudice or Emma?

And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.

Just because we didn't end up on the same wave, doesn't mean we aren't still a part of the same ocean.

I think about how sometimes, no matter how convinced you are that your life will turn out a certain way, all that certainty can be washed away with a simple change in tide.

No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end.