Dena

“Contentment has learned how to find out what she needs to know. Last year she went on a major housecleaning spree. First she stood on her head until all the extra facts fell out. Then she discarded about half her house. Now she knows where every thing comes from—who dyed the yarn dark green and who wove the rug and who built the loom, who made the willow chair, who planted the apricot trees. She made the turquoise mugs herself with clay she found in the hills beyond her house.

When Contentment is sad, she takes a mud bath or goes to the mountains until her lungs are clear. When she walks through an unfamiliar neighborhood, she always makes friends with the local cats.”
― J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities: An Evocative Work of Poetic Psychology―Magical Personifications of Human Emotions

“Of course! the path to heaven
doesn't lie down in flat miles.
It's in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,
and the gestures
with which you honor it.
-from The Swan”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“I didn’t study it for my career; I studied it for my soul.”
― Heather Lynn Rigaud, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star

“If you love books -- they will love you back.”
― Dena Barisano