Michael Dashkin

“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
― Sholem Aleichem

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield