Rachel Drenning

“I had before me an object lesson, I thought: two ways to face the world. One way as embodied by this old woman—simple, unassuming, a kind of peasant dignity, a naturalness inherent in her every move. The other, exemplified by the girl—smartness, sophistication, veneer without substance. I was conscious that I have now opted for the old woman’s way, have thrown in my lot with a creature I would have jeered at a year ago. My present trip to the mountains is indeed a trip to that wellspring of naturalness she symbolized. And I admired my choice: the correct choice, the only choice for a sensitive and moral man in my dilemma.”
― Lee Smith, Oral History

“But the look Charles Manson had given him one night, when he’d slammed the cell door shut, would stick in his mind always. It was the stare of a crazed lunatic, someone unpredictable, who you wouldn’t want to trust whether encountered in a dark alley or open field.”
― Eric D. Goodman, Setting the Family Free

“This is the nature of temptation, you see. If it didn’t come in the exact form we desire, we would never consider it. All it takes to indulge in what we want is to turn a blind eye now and then.”
― S.P. Miskowski, Delphine Dodd

“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and disposition of man. I find the result humiliating to me. — Mark Twain, Letters From Earth”
― Eric D. Goodman, Setting the Family Free