Sunday Selections: The 9/11 Edition

This is normally where I talk about some of my favorite passages from my favorite books, but today I decided to share a few of the quotes that move me regarding September 11, 2001. Please feel free to share your thoughts or favorite quotes.





Our enemies have made the mistake that America’s enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now, they see defeat.
~ George W. Bush, President of the United States

*****

Today, we gather to be reassured that God hears the lamenting and bitter weeping of Mother America because so many of her children are no more. Let us now seek that assurance in prayer for the healing of our grief stricken hearts, for the souls and sacred memory of those who have been lost. Let us also pray for divine wisdom as our leaders consider the necessary actions for national security, wisdom of the grace of God that as we act, we not become the evil we deplore.
~ Reverend Nathan Baxter, Dean of Washington National Cathedral

*****

This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life, and we the democracies of this world are going to have to come together and fight it together.
~ British Prime Minister Tony Blair

*****

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.

~ George W. Bush, President of the United States

Sunday Selections: Outlander

Welcome to Sunday Selections, a meme devoted to sharing and discussing our favorite quotes and passages from our favorite books. If you'd like to share a selection, please leave a comment with a link to your post.

This week I'm sharing one of my favorite passages from Outlander by Diane Gabaldon. This is an excerpt from the scene where Claire returns to the ancient Scottish stones that catapulted her back in time from 1945 to 1743. This is the moment she's been striving for for the past six months, to get back to the stones to return home to her life with her husband. But now that she's finally here with Jamie, the man who's been her anchor in this strange and dangerous world, she is afraid and uncertain.

     "My lady," he said softly. "My...Claire. It's no use in waiting. I must part wi' ye now."
     My lips were too stiff to speak, but the expression on my face must have been as easily readable as usual.
     "Claire," he said urgently, "it's your own time on the other side of...that thing. You've a home there, a place. The things that you're used to. And...and Frank."
     "Yes," I said, "there's Frank."
     Jamie caught me by the shoulders, pulling me to my feet and shaking me gently in supplication.
     "There's nothing for ye on this side, lass! Nothing save violence and danger. Go!" He pushed me slightly, turning me toward the stone circle. I turned back to him catching his hands.
     "Is there really nothing for me here, Jamie?" I held his eyes, not letting him turn away from me.
     He pulled himself gently from my grasp without answering and stood back, suddenly a figure from another time, seen in relief upon a background of hazy hills, the life in his face a trick of the shadowing rock, as if flattened beneath layers of paint, an artist's reminiscence of forgotten places and passions turned to dust.
     I looked into his eyes, filled with pain and yearning, and he was flesh again, real and immediate, lover, husband, man.

I love the description of Claire viewing Jamie as a painting, as something not real, because it's a good parallel of how she has viewed life ever since she stumbled through the stones. She's had a hard time grasping the reality of her situation and with Jamie, she's always held back, almost refusing to believe that the life she's been living in 1743 is entirely real, because she's always known that one day she was going to get back to the standing stones and go home. It's almost like, in this moment, she is confronted by both perceptions in the form of a trick of the eye where they are merged together, and she is forced to acknowledge the truth and the consequences of her decision.

In addition to the meaning behind this scene, I just love the way it's written. I think Diana Gabaldon's prose is beautifully poetic at times without ever feeling obvious or overstated. This book is one of my comfort reads. I've read it and thumbed through it so often and yet I never tire of it. It sits on my shelf of honor as one of the books that has really deepened my appreciation for the art of good story-telling.

Sunday Selections: Gone With the Wind

Welcome to Sunday Selections, a meme devoted to sharing and discussing our favorite quotes and passages from our favorite books. If you'd like to share a selection, please leave a comment with a link to your post.

This week I've chosen to share the one of my favorite passages from  Gone With the Wind. This is from the scene where Scarlett, having arrived home to find Tara ruined, is rummaging through the slave quarters, hungry and tired, desperate, looking for food. This is the moment Scarlett changes, the moment that drives all of her actions through the rest of the story:

After a long time, she lay weakly on her face, the earth as soft and comfortable as a feather pillow, and her mind wandered feebly here and there. She, Scarlett O'Hara, was lying behind a negro cabin, in the midst of ruins, too sick and too weak to move, and no one in the world knew or cared. No one would care if they did know, for everyone had too many troubles of their own to worry about her. And all this was happening to her, Scarlett O'Hara, who had never raised her hand even to pick up her discarded stockings from the floor or to tie the laces of her slippers - Scarlett, whose little headaches and tempers had been coddled and catered to all her life.

As she lay prostrate, too weak to fight off memories and worries, they rushed at her, circled about her like buzzards waiting for a death. No longer had she the strength to say: "I'll think of Mother and Pa and Ashley and all this ruin later - Yes, later when I can stand it." She could not stand it now, but she was thinking of them whether she willed it or not. The thoughts circled and swooped above her, dived down and drove tearing claws and sharp beaks into her mind. For a timeless time, she lay still, her face in the dirt, the sun beating hotly upon her, remembering things and people who were dead, remembering a way of living that was gone forever - and looking upon the harsh vista of the dark future.

When she rose at last and saw the black ruins of Twelve Oaks, her head was raised high and something that was youth and beauty and potential tenderness had gone out of her face forever. What was the past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return. And, as Scarlett settled the heavy basket across her arm, she had settled her own mind and her own life.

There was no going back and she was going forward.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back.

I love this passage for several reasons other than it being one of the key scenes of the novel. Whenever I come across the subject of imagery in writing, this scene always comes first to my mind. The depiction of Scarlett's thoughts as buzzards, scavengers, circling and diving down on her is masterful. I can see it happening to her so clearly in my mind; I can see how these truths that she is forced to face overwhelm her, terrify her, have the power to destroy her.

And then, in that next quiet moment, I can see her change. I can see her make that decision to overcome in typical Scarlett fashion: suddenly, tenaciously, and knowing exactly how to succeed. I can see her harden her heart in preparation, determined to do whatever it takes.

The last paragraph is amazing: an epic, poetic, haunting description of a generation of Restoration South women in thirty-eight words. It's a shame Margaret Mitchell never published another novel. In Gone With the Wind she proved herself a master of the craft of writing. It is one of the most beautifully written novels, a true American literary gem and I'll be sharing several other passages in future posts.

Sunday Selections: Wuthering Heights

Welcome to Sunday Selections, a meme devoted to sharing and discussing our favorite quotes and passages from our favorite books. If you'd like to share a selection, please leave a comment with a link to your post.

This week I've chosen to share the last line from one of my favorite classics, Wuthering Heights (Signet Classics):

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.








As far as last lines go, I think this is one of the very best. The prose is poetic and soothing, yet the contrast of images brought forth, the peaceful countryside and the restless, tortured spirits of Heathcliff and Catherine, are disquieting. I think this last line really puts the rest of the novel in perspective. Two people too caught up in their own twisted wants and desires to allow the quiet beauty that surrounded them to nurture them, to calm them and to provide them with peace and happiness, even in death.