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“It was her birthday. She thought, I am always unhappy on this day.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

“THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules.”
― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“When I have to die, I would like to die on a day of rain— long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“There are strawberries growing among my bulbs. Wild ones, seeded from God knows where, poking their pale little fingers among the tulips and crocuses. Wild strawberries are invasive; not quite as invasive as dandelions, but those little heart-shaped leaves conceal a powerful hunger for conquest, sending their runners everywhere, each one an outpost preparing itself for a future invasion.
And yet I cannot bring myself, père, to curb their cheery exuberance. Though more or less worthless in terms of fruit, the little white flowers and pretty leaves make excellent ground count cover, keeping the thistles and ragwort at bay without suppressing my daffodils. And besides, in summer, there may be enough of the tiny red berries to put on a tart, or flavor a glassful of sweet white wine. That is, if the birds do not steal them first. They too enjoy their sweetness.
Those strawberries will creep, Reynaud, said Narcisse's voice in my mind. Let them stay, and in a month, your beds will be nothing but strawberries.”
― Joanne Harris, The Strawberry Thief