The Library Writer

“If this was lost, let us all be lost always.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“Resistance plays for keeps. It plays to kill. Resistance is fueled by fear. It has no power on its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. Master the fear and we conquer resistance.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Stepping out into the world, into the grass, onto the path, was always a kind of relief. I was not escaping anything. I was returning to the arena of delight.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“As much as I wanted to make all of our customers happy, our farm inevitably began to sell out of certain items each week...

I had been taught that businesses should constantly grow and expand. Owners should demand annual productivity increases, and resources were to be tapped for maximum potential. Like most things in our melting-pot society, the message was a uniquely American blend -- equal parts Manifest Destiny, Yankee ingenuity, and Protestant work ethic. A dash of Horatio Alger seemed to be thrown in for good luck.
Be more! Live more!
Consume! Produce!

...What if, at the end of the day, just growing what we could grow was good enough? And what if we genuinely wanted other family farms to succeed as well? These were the ideas I valued most, and the questions I wanted to answer. Everything else began to feel like noise.”
― Forrest Pritchard, Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm