Howard Cruz

“Tall arched Windows filtered in light from all sides, while creepy winged gargoyles leared from the top, waiting for someone with a wand to bring them to life. Inside, thousands of visitors a day chose from among six million books, for their proof that books would survive catastrophic events alongside the roaches.”
― Julia Heaberlin, Playing Dead

“Certainly, if we live in the past, we will be depressed. If we live in the future, we are guaranteed anxiety. Now is always fast and new. Like any practice, it's not about technique or program. It's a decision.”
― Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

“If they embark on a journey to turn their lives around, homies become accustomed to speaking of paths. "I used to walk the bad path,"one might say, "but now I'm on the good path."it's a natural thing to say, but I don't think there are two paths. There's only the good journey. We are never on any other path but that one. There are obstacles along the way of the good journey, of course:ruts and gulches and seemingly insurmountable impasses requiring logs laid across the ravine over which we gingerly walk. At times we get stuck in mud or even quicksand on this path, but it is one journey and it is good inasmuch as in beckons us toward the God who calls us who only wants us to be drawn forward.”
― Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

“I buy a book. Surrounded by so many, it would seem rude not to. It's a story written in 1958. I've read it before, but it brings a curious sense of comfort to slip it inside my bag. As I leave the shop, and the world of fiction behind, it feels as if I'm taking a little of the fantasy with me. A talisman made of paper and words to help ward off reality.”
― Alice Feeney, I Know Who You Are