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1,574 books
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2,471 voters
“We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
―
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
―
“Creation never ceased on the sixth evening, it occurs to the young man. Creation unfolds around us, despite us and through us at the speed of days and nights. And we call it love.”
― The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
― The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“I'm not saying it's simple to find and tell the truth. It takes a great deal of hard work, intellectual honesty, open-mindedness, and a willingness to keep listening to people even when your gut is telling you they're full of it. Then it involves drilling through the layers of one's cultural assumptions and prejudgments, all the way down to the mushy middle of all of us, where I believe there's a basic humanity that tells us what's right and what's wrong. If we as writers apply that code - without the anchors of agenda or ideology - we can lift our prose to something that can be called the truth. It's the very best of what journalism can and should be.”
― Eyes of the Innocent
― Eyes of the Innocent
“It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.”
― The Glass Rainbow
― The Glass Rainbow
“My entrance into the courtyard caused a small stir among the lookouts. I could tell because in the middle of February, in the dark of night, Baxter Terrace suddenly sounded like an Audubon Society refuge - birdcalls being the latest in urban drug - selling counterintelligence...
Birdcalls allowed much more information to be imparted to other members of the operation, without the visitor being aware of what was being communicated. So while a crow's harsh cry could harken the arrival of a member of the city narcotics unit - a significant threat - the sweet song of a chickadee might signal an officer who was merely escorting a social worker to an appointment allowing business to continue in guarded fashion. Someone like me, a stranger on unknown business, might warrant a whipporwill's call.
Where exactly a city kid learned what a whipporwill sounded like, I have no idea. But these kids were nothing if not resourceful. It makes you wonder what they could have accomplished under different circumstances.”
― Eyes of the Innocent
Birdcalls allowed much more information to be imparted to other members of the operation, without the visitor being aware of what was being communicated. So while a crow's harsh cry could harken the arrival of a member of the city narcotics unit - a significant threat - the sweet song of a chickadee might signal an officer who was merely escorting a social worker to an appointment allowing business to continue in guarded fashion. Someone like me, a stranger on unknown business, might warrant a whipporwill's call.
Where exactly a city kid learned what a whipporwill sounded like, I have no idea. But these kids were nothing if not resourceful. It makes you wonder what they could have accomplished under different circumstances.”
― Eyes of the Innocent
Bethmck’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Bethmck’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,081 books
|
89 friends
4 books
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11 friends
682 books
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54 friends
171 books
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156 friends
4 books
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27 friends
67 books
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32 friends
8 books
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20 friends
1 book
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25 friends
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