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Vanessa Johnson
https://www.goodreads.com/vanessaannajohnson
“The legend of my mom is that she can’t be stopped. Not when you hit her. Not when a whole country full of goons puts her in a cage. Not even if you make her poor and try to kill her slowly in the little-by-little poison of sadness. And the legend is true. I think because she’s fixed her eyes on something beyond the rivers of blood, to a beautiful place on the other side. How else would anybody do it?”
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
“Dear reader, you have to understand the point of all these stories. What they add up to. Schererazade was trying to make the king human again. She made him love life by showing him all of it, the funny parts about poop, the dangerous parts with demons, even the boring parts about what makes marriages last.
Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.
He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.”
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.
He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.”
― Everything Sad Is Untrue
“As you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: You have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.”
― Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
― Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
― Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
“The Bible is not a privileged possession of Protestants: all believers, absolutely, must be nourished on Scripture. ... We are constantly bombarded with messages of every kind. Only God's Word, passed on to us in a special way in Scripture, has the necessary depth, clarity, and authority to help us find our way. Only Scripture enables us to discover the truth, not as something abstract, but as God's presence in our lives and the very specific way he offers us day after day.
...
This simple spiritual experience of discovering Holy Scripture as light, encouragement, and strength for our path today--for Scripture has an authority possessed by no human word, no human reasoning--is one all Christians can and should have.”
― The Way of Trust and Love - A Retreat Guided By St. Therese of Lisieux
...
This simple spiritual experience of discovering Holy Scripture as light, encouragement, and strength for our path today--for Scripture has an authority possessed by no human word, no human reasoning--is one all Christians can and should have.”
― The Way of Trust and Love - A Retreat Guided By St. Therese of Lisieux
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Vanessa’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Vanessa’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
398 books
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17 friends
1,806 books
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447 friends
1,172 books
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8 friends
1,926 books
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101 friends
4,099 books
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111 friends
1,763 books
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372 friends
482 books
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80 friends
451 books
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30 friends
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