Sifting through the dirt to get to the gold
"It offended his sense of proportion and economy to throw away a ninety-percent serviceable string of lights. It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it... Continue Reading →
"There is no better time than the autumn to begin forgetting things that trouble us, allowing them to fall away like drifted leaves. There is no better time to dance again, to make the most out of every crumb of sunlight and warm body and soul with its rays before it falls asleep and becomes... Continue Reading →
"I almost feel sorry for her now. So easy to feel sorry for someone whose life is full of such tasks and aspirations. Lying here, in her place, on her bed, my head on her pillow, it is all pitifully clear: Emma is the engine of this home, the person who propels it forward,... Continue Reading →
"But he is going east, the worst direction, into unhealth, soot, and stink, a smothering hole where you can't move without killing somebody. Yet the highway suckered him on, and a sign says Pottstown 2. He almost brakes. But then he thinks." Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is getting old and it is not going gracefully. He's... Continue Reading →
Most of the people who knew my mother either slept with her or wished they had, including me, my aunt Medina and a man who boarded with us; though he was neither old nor someone’s father, he went by the name of “Pops.” I know that’s ambiguous, but it’s better left ambiguous for now. As... Continue Reading →
"You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices." At the heart of the city and ingrained in the people of Winesburg, Ohio is a purity, an optimism that over time becomes tainted, decayed, distorted because of missed opportunities or common mistakes experienced in... Continue Reading →
" 'Supposedly these two women got in a fight over a man up there in front of the church. One was the wife and the other was the girlfriend. The preacher heard one of them swear she was going to knock the other one stiff.' " A ghost town in the northeastern part of Ohio... Continue Reading →
“Some folks locked the doors of their hearts when they lost someone. Others kept the doors and the windows open, letting memory and love pass through freely. And maybe that was the way it was supposed to be, Harold thought.” It is easy to grasp the idea that the premise of the novel has a... Continue Reading →
