Vicki Cheney

“This morning I woke up at four and lay awake for an hour or so in a bad state. It is raining again. I got up finally and went about the daily chores, waiting for the sense of doom to lift — and what did it was watering the house plants. Suddenly joy came back because I was fulfilling a simple need, a living one. Dusting never has this effect (and that may be why I am such a poor housekeeper!), but feeding the cats when they are hungry, giving Punch clean water, makes me suddenly feel calm and happy. Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.”
― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“Machines do things very quickly and outside the natural rhythm of life, and we are indignant if a car doesn’t start at the first try. So the few things that we still do, such as cooking (though there are TV dinners!), knitting, gardening, anything at all that cannot be hurried, have a very particular value.”
― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“Three hundred fifty parts per million,” he replied. “The number of carbon molecules the atmosphere can hold, and still maintain the ordinary thermal balance. It’s an important figure.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior

“That’s what they don’t tell you about getting older—it’s not the invisibility or the aches and pains that kill you. Instead, it’s that incrementally, and over a span of just a few years, you are perceived to be less and less useful to the world. And the belief that you’re slipping begins to calcify into the fear that, if you’re no longer good at something, then maybe you’re not good for anything. And then why are you still here?”
― Liza Palmer, Family Reservations