Instead Quotes (page 54)
When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.
Anne Lamott
Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at - nothing - at nothing, simply.
Katherine Mansfield
Addie, please." More tears dripped down her cheeks. "Don't be so hard."Oh, please," I muttered...and that was as far as I got. 'You broke my heart' were the words that had risen to my mouth, but I couldn't say them. That was what you said to a boyfriend, a lover, not your best friend. She'd laugh. And I'd had enough of being laughed at. I'd worked hard to get to a place where it didn't happen anymore, where I didn't move through life like a walking target, where it was just me and my paints...
Jennifer Weiner
The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity.
Jane Jacobs
So she learned ways of conserving bits of seconds. Long before the train ground to a stop at her station, she pushed her way to the door to be one of the first expelled when it slid open. Out of the train, she ran like a deer, circling the crowd to be the first up the stairs leading to the street. Walking to the office, she kept close to the buildings so she could turn corners sharply. She crossed streets kittycorner to save stepping off and on an extra pair of curbs. At the building,...
Betty Smith