Kathy

“For decades he'd sensed a whiff of wrong in everything he aimed for, but Harriet seemed to accept his good intentions. Or, more precisely, to accept his intentions as good.”
― Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

“Harriet Larson had said yes all her life. To her parents. To her teachers. To Lou and the girls. To Corinne and Sophie. She'd said yes to shopkeepers, to doctors, to car salesmen, to Girl Scout leaders, to Mormons on rounds, to hairdressers who wouldn't let her go gray. She'd been raised to say yes, to agree and approve and adapt and accommodate, to step aside as the architect of her own happiness. After Lou's death she vowed to say yes only when that yes belonged to her, solely to her. And so: Yes to college. Yes to teaching. Yes to retirement. Yes without being asked; yes before being asked. Yes to Book Club. Yes to Violet. Yes to the filthy and broken Dawna-Lynn, for whom she was searching out a bright, becoming color from a closet too full of beige. These yesses felt like power, like gateways, like love.
"Frank." She laid her cheek on his chest. "Yes.”
― Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

“I used to race through books one after another, but in Book Club Harriet taught us that when you slow down, you notice more, and when you notice more, you feel more. Reading one book makes it part of all the books you've ever read, Harriet said, so she was forever dragging other books into our discussions.

QUESTION: If Gatsby had a brother like Ethan Frome, would he have made the same mistakes?

QUESTION: If Frank and Zooey could speak from the Spoon River graveyard, which one would tell the story, which the "meanwhile"?”
― Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

“Passer-by,
To love is to find your own soul
Through the soul of the beloved one.

-- quoted from Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology”
― Monica Wood, How to Read a Book