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“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”
― Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games
― Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
―
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
―
Book Club with Themed Activities for Folks in their 30s and 40s
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For members of the Facebook group located in Portland, OR!
Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge
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An annual reading challenge to to help you stretch your reading limits and explore new voices, worlds, and genres! The challenge begins in January, bu ...more
Jessie’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jessie’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
4,493 books
|
119 friends
858 books
|
60 friends
693 books
|
39 friends
1,883 books
|
39 friends
335 books
|
90 friends
650 books
|
232 friends
363 books
|
17 friends
1,024 books
|
213 friends
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