As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves!
It was a wonderful life. To have a stage play right in this room, with real people acting real parts.
In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After ‘Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder.
… for fog was merely a cloud that wasn’t too smitten with itself to visit terra firma.
That was his favorite thing about books—they took you off to other people’s lives an’ places, but you could still set in your own chair by th’oil heater, warm as a mouse in a churn.
While most people took family for granted, he [Father Tim] took it for grace.
Why can’t life always be lived under the stars,’ she said, ‘with great music and family and friends?
Professor Morgan had called [Dooley] ‘a lad of few words.’ That wasn’t true. There were words spilling around in him all the time. Too many words. His problem was organizing them.
I can’t say I have any confidence in confidence. I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and tough.
Maybe it’s because he never had any control over what was happening to him as a boy. Being late was somehow a way of taking charge.
As worthless as guilt was known to be, he couldn’t help feeling it, seeing his wife work herself to exhaustion for a parish tea that would last only two hours.
Listening is among the most generous ways to give. When a loved one talks to us— whether their words appear to be deep or shallow— listen. For in some way, they are baring their souls.