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Sunbeams

The challenge of running The Sun continues to occupy me. Sometimes it occupies me like a conquering army, sometimes like the Holy Ghost. Either way I’m grateful for the chance to do this work month after month, year after year — a man happy to have found his cross to bear. Yes, even living your dream can feel like a burden now and then. But, my oh my, to live your dream! And not just when you’re sleeping, but every morning when you open your eyes. Then you sit in the dark and write a few words. Then the sun comes up.

Sy Safransky’s Notebook, May 2006

Sunbeams

The practices we now call conservation are, to a large extent, local alleviations of biotic pain. They are necessary, but they must not be confused with cures. The art of land doctoring is being practiced with vigor, but the science of land health is yet to be born.

Aldo Leopold

Sunbeams

It’s hard for me to believe that I will die. Because I’m bubbling in a frigid freshness. My life is going to be very long because each instant is. The impression is that I’m still to be born.

Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

Sunbeams

One imagines the birth of happiness to be accompanied by some great spectacular upheaval. One can imagine it flowering in the most luxurious setting. Yet happiness is born of a trifle, feeds on nothing.

Mariama Bâ, Scarlet Song

Sunbeams

I turn off the radio, listen to the quiet. Which has its own, rich sound. Which I knew, but had forgotten. And it is good to remember.

Elizabeth Berg, Open House

Sunbeams

I dream of songs. I dream they fall down through the centuries, from my distant ancestors, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats.

Rosanne Cash

Sunbeams

I’m still learning how dogged people can be in denial, even when their freedom or their lives are at stake.

Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

Sunbeams

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

Aldous Huxley

Sunbeams

Not everybody feels religion in the same way. Some it’s in their mouth, but some it’s like a hope in their blood, their bones.

Tillie Olsen, “O Yes”

Sunbeams

The feminine in the man is the sugar in the whiskey. The masculine in the woman is the yeast in the bread. Without these ingredients the result is flat, without tang or flavor.

Edna Ferber