Commonplace Book

Stefania Shukhov   "Oh, the joy of waking, and remembering at once that it was Christmas morning. It was still only half-light, but because of the white radiance of the snow there was a brightness in her room, and Fanny could see perfectly well. She scrambled from her bed, and ran to the window and looked outside, but she could see nothing for the ferns and whorls and delicate tracery of rime on the inside of the pane. She touched her finger to it and it burned with the cold, and the air was cold, too, so that she dived at once back into her bed."   Stanley Roy Badmin   "The snow crunched under their feet, and everywhere, the sun caught on a million beads and drops of hoar frost and threw off a million rainbows, intensely bright and glittering. On the gate hung a spider's web, infinitely delicate, and stiff as frozen lace, with the spider itself frozen in the heart of it. And on the hedges and trees, the fences and posts, were the seams of snow. By the lych-g...

    N.C. Wyeth     "God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home." Isak Dinesen, "Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny"   Brad Teare "You want to go home. The instinct for heaven is just that: homesickness, ancient as night, urgent as daybreak. All your longings - for the place you grew up, for the taste of raspberry tarts that your mother once pulled hot from the oven, for that bend in the river where your father took you as a child, where the water was dark and swirling and the caddis flies hovered in the deep shade - all these longings are a homesickness, a wanting in full what all these things only hint at, only prick you with. These are the things seen that conjure in our emotions the Things Unseen." Mark Buchanan, "Things Unseen"   "For the power Thou hast given me to lay hold of things uns...

                     John O'Connor   "Art is possible when the imposed limitations are not so cramping as to preclude all initiative; and it actually begins only when the limitations are not only understood and accepted, but are perceived as definite and positive opportunities for free spontaneous self-expression. Walls shut out possibilities, but they no less truly create possibilities. Without walls, one is indeed free, - to spread oneself out thin. With walls, a dam or a channel is created, which permits one's energy to accumulate pressure or to concentrate in a given direction." Curt John Ducasse  fr. "Philosophy of Art"   John O’Connor     Limits have their benefits. When I think of how often I don't know where to start with something - say, Life - what to be or do or where to go?It turns out that limitations are helpful. I can't invent, but I can follow dire...