Katie Bliss

“Woman can change better'n a man," Ma said soothingly. "Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Seems like our life's over and done."
"No, it ain't," Ma smiled. "It ain't, Pa. An' that's one more thing a woman knows. I noticed that. Man, he lives in jerks -- baby born an' a man dies, an' that's a jerk -- gets a farm an' loses a farm, an' that's a jerk. Woman, it's all one flow, like a stream, like eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain't gonna die out. People is goin' on -- changin' a little, maybe, but goin' right on.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering, that I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things, because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.”
― Ann Voskamp, Selections from One Thousand Gifts: Finding Joy in What Really Matters

“Be merciful to yourself, stop fighting yourself quite so much. Maybe what you are asking of yourself, what you're driving yourself to do or to be, what you put a gun to your own back to make yourself do, is something at this point you needn't have to think about doing. So, think back at the end of the day to the wars you're involved in. How are they going?”
― Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life