Betsy Farrington

“ . . . I have come to revere words like "democracy" and "freedom," the right to vote, the incomprehensibly beautiful origins of my country, and the grandeur of the extraordinary vision of the founding fathers. Do I not see America's flaws? Of course I do. But I now can honor her basic, incorruptible virtues, the ones that let me walk the streets screaming my ass off that my country had no idea what it was doing in South Vietnam. . . . I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew then in my bones, but lacked the courage to act on: America is a good enough country to die for even when she is wrong.”
― Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Common thistle is everywhere,” she said. “Which is perhaps why human beings are so relentlessly unkind to one another.”
― Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers

“It is our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person.”
― Marcel Proust