sunny

“Her world was lonely and silent. Now that there was open water, there was no longer the crash of the ice pack, the long, low grind of the floes churning against one another, the deep and sudden splash of water as masses of the pack broke off and plunged into the sea, or the staccato burst like rifle shots that echoed across the island as the ice expanded. There was only the sound of her own voice as she spoke to Vic. She fussed over the cat like a mother and picked up and held her in her arms and talked to her like she had talked to Crawford and the others. Vic was a warm, breathing creature, who responded in purrs and rubs and an occasional meow. Ada thought she would go insane without her.”
― Jennifer Niven, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic

“She heard the man calling, "Keep to the left, if you want to get home and see your father and mother." But she kept running along the smooth road, and just then she looks back, and she is out of the sea and into the air; and as she looks back the trail behind her fades away...
- Ada Blackjack, "The Lady in the Moon”
― Jennifer Niven, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic

“And since she wanted to be good, she's always been careful not to care too much about money. Now she wondered if all those Disney movies were merely propaganda to keep poor people content with their lot. 'We may be poor, but we're the salt of the earth, we know what really matters. The rich are perverted by their hideous wealth - why, look at that Cruella de Vil!' But good or evil, even single dollar was power. Power to hire a lawyer, power to control how she spent her time, power to change her appearance, power to command respect. Power to be who she wanted to be.”
― Rufi Thorpe, Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Is it possible that somewhere there are people even now being ostracized by their kind for eating olives with a fork or peas with a knife? People who judge a man by his grooming, his bank account, or his ancestry? Our new world has stripped us to the fundamentals; and it is salutary, if not a little humbling, to reflect that these fundamentals--intelligence, character, and health--are not peculiarly human, that they are the same with men, with horses, with dogs, and with ants.
- Harold Noice, captain of the Donaldson, the ship that saved sole survivor Ada Blackjack of the Wrangel Island expedition, describing the Arctic”
― Jennifer Niven, Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic