Courtney

“Misty sat in her office staring at the pear she had bought for her lunch. It was a hard, unripe little Seckel pear and the thought of eating it upset her. She sat reflecting on the civil war between her character and personality. One had trapped the other. Her character, she decided, was like the tender stomach of a porcupine and her personality was a bunch of quills. When the porcupine is frightened, she knew, it rolls itself up into a ball to protect its vulnerable stomach from harm. The enemy does not know how soft the porcupine is inside; only the porcupine does.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Back in New York, my dad refused to admit that he had a wife, much less a daughter on the way. This fantasy came to an end when he picked up his mail to find a postcard from a grinning woman, with a swelling belly, firing off automatic weapons with a group of equally happy Uzbek men. The caption read, 'Enjoying the afternoon with your daughter!'

On July 19, exactly four weeks before I was born, my father opened the door to find a woman wearing a burka, the traditional dress of Iran. When my mother finally went into labor at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, my dad was finally forced to venture outside his circle of comfort. Having done so—and meeting me—he realized it wasn't so bad out there.”
― Nicolaia Rips, Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel

“In Cal the process had been so long and so slow that he felt no strangeness. He had built a wall of self-sufficiency around himself, strong enough to defend him against the world. If his wall had any weak places they may have been on the sides nearest Aron and Lee, and particularly nearest Adam. Perhaps in his father's very unawareness Cal had felt safety. Not being noticed at all was better than being noticed adversely.

When he was quite small Cal had discovered a secret. If he moved very quietly to where his father was sitting and if he leaned very lightly against his father's knee, Adam's hand would rise automatically and his fingers would caress Cal's shoulder. It is probable that Adam did not even know he did it, but the caress brought such a raging flood of emotion to the boy that he saved this special joy and used it only when he needed it. It was a magic to be depended on. It was the ceremonial symbol of a dogged adoration.

Things do not change with a change of scene. In Salinas, Cal had no more friends than he had in King City. Associates he had, and authority and some admiration, but friends he did not have. He lived alone and walked alone.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Wilderness is the source of what we can imagine and what we cannot - the taproot of consciousness.

It will survive us.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks