“Do you know the best feeling in the world?"
"Uh..." Nina shook her head, despite having some ideas.
Liz glowed. "It's reading a book, loving every second of it, then turning to the front and discovering that the writer wrote fourteen zillion others.”
― The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
"Uh..." Nina shook her head, despite having some ideas.
Liz glowed. "It's reading a book, loving every second of it, then turning to the front and discovering that the writer wrote fourteen zillion others.”
― The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.”
― Upstream: Selected Essays
― Upstream: Selected Essays
“Three hours later, the book finished, her cheeks a little pink because it was so sad and lovely and sad again, Nina stood up and stretched. Coming out of a book was always painful. She was surprised to see things had remained in place while she herself had been roaming other towns, other times.”
― The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
― The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
“And I do it because it's unnecessary.
For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequited? There is no kindness in paying a bill. There is no kindness in getting up at dawn to slop the pigs, or milk the cows, or gather the eggs from the henhouse. For that matter, there is no kindness in making dinner, or in cleaning the kitchen after your father heads upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.
There is no kindness in latching the doors and turning out the lights, or in picking up the clothes from the bathroom floor in order to put them int he hamper. There is no kindness in taking care of a household because your only sister had the good sense to get herself married and move to Pensacola.
Nope, I said to myself while climbing into bed and switching off the light, there is no kindness in any of that.
For kindness begins where necessity ends.”
― The Lincoln Highway
For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequited? There is no kindness in paying a bill. There is no kindness in getting up at dawn to slop the pigs, or milk the cows, or gather the eggs from the henhouse. For that matter, there is no kindness in making dinner, or in cleaning the kitchen after your father heads upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.
There is no kindness in latching the doors and turning out the lights, or in picking up the clothes from the bathroom floor in order to put them int he hamper. There is no kindness in taking care of a household because your only sister had the good sense to get herself married and move to Pensacola.
Nope, I said to myself while climbing into bed and switching off the light, there is no kindness in any of that.
For kindness begins where necessity ends.”
― The Lincoln Highway
“Here's the plain truth, at least as it has been shown to me: We are never far from wonders. I remember when my son was about two, we were walking in the woods one November morning. We were along a ridge, looking down at a forest in the valley below, where a cold haze seemed to hug the forest floor. I kept trying to get my oblivious two-year-old to appreciate the landscape. At one point, I picked him up and pointed out toward the horizon and said, "Look at that, Henry, just look at it!" And he said, "Weaf!" I said, "What?" And again he said, "Weaf," and then reached out and grabbed a single brown oak leaf from the little tree next to us.
I wanted to explain to him that you can see a brown oak leaf anywhere in the eastern United States in November, that nothing in the forest was less interesting. But after watching him look at it, I began to look as well, and I soon realized it wasn't just a brown leaf. Its veins spidered out red and orange and yellow in a pattern too complex for my brain to synthesize, and the more I looked at that leaf with Henry, the more I was compelled into an aesthetic contemplation I neither understood nor desired, face-to-face with something commensurate to my capacity for wonder.
Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see. From the quark to the supernova, the wonders do not cease. It is our attentiveness that is in short supply, our ability and willingness to do the work that awe requires.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
I wanted to explain to him that you can see a brown oak leaf anywhere in the eastern United States in November, that nothing in the forest was less interesting. But after watching him look at it, I began to look as well, and I soon realized it wasn't just a brown leaf. Its veins spidered out red and orange and yellow in a pattern too complex for my brain to synthesize, and the more I looked at that leaf with Henry, the more I was compelled into an aesthetic contemplation I neither understood nor desired, face-to-face with something commensurate to my capacity for wonder.
Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see. From the quark to the supernova, the wonders do not cease. It is our attentiveness that is in short supply, our ability and willingness to do the work that awe requires.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Jane’s 2025 Year in Books
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