Jamalyn Ackley

“The shorter we think our lives will be, the more likely we are to do things that are meaningful and give us pleasure. Awareness of death catapults us toward joy and reflection.”
― Mary Pipher, Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age

“Here is Chang Ch’ao on reading at different times in your life: “Reading books in one’s youth is like looking at the moon through a crevice; reading books in middle age is like looking at the moon in one’s courtyard; and reading books in old age is like looking at the moon on an open terrace. This is because the depth of benefits of reading varies in proportion to the depth of one’s own experience.”
― Will Schwalbe, Books for Living

“Polite inclusion is the gateway drug to mercy.”
― Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy

“You see in his Le pont de l’Europe a young man, well dressed in his grey overcoat and black top hat, maybe the artist, walking over the bridge along the generous pavement. He is two steps ahead of a young woman in a dress of sedate frills carrying a parasol. The sun is out. There is the glare of newly dressed stone. A dog passes by. A workman leans over the bridge. It is like the start of the world: a litany of perfect movements and shadows. Everyone, including the dog, knows what they are doing. Gustave Caillebotte, Le pont de l’Europe, 1876 The streets of Paris have a calmness to them: clean stone façades, rhythmic detailing of balconies, newly planted lime trees appear in his painting Jeune homme à sa fenêtre, shown in the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Here Caillebotte’s brother stands at the open window of their family apartment looking out onto the intersection of the rue de Monceau’s neighbouring streets. He stands with his hands in his pockets, well dressed and self-assured, with his life before him and a plush armchair behind him. Everything is possible.”
― Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss