Angela MacRae Shanks

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“So I say this. Speak of them. Speak of those that died. Speak of all those who ever died--in all the world's history, in its wars, and long-lost days. Speak of those who met their deaths in Glencoe, in snow--not of their deaths, but of their lives before them. Not of how they died, but of how they bent to pat a dog's head, or what ballads they could sing, or what their skin was like by their eyes when they smiled, or which weather was their weather--for it keeps them living. It stops them being dead.

To do this--to speak or write of them--puts breath back in their mouths. It lifts them up from their earthy beds... brings them forth, and they stand by the side of the one who speaks of them; they walk out of the pages of those who write them down. From the realm, they smile upon us. All the dead people--only, they are not dead.”
― Susan Fletcher, Corrag