At Odds With the World

 "If you wake up feeling at odds with the world, direct your attention outside of yourself, see what the world requires of you, and then get busy. The chances are that in a very short while, your grumpiness will be replaced with a feeling of goodwill."

Little Heathens

Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression

Mildred Armstrong Kalish

A Bit Of Heaven

Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

First Stanza of 

"The Clod and the Pebble"

~William Blake

Wordsworth at Loch Katrine

 

Stepping Westward

"What, you are stepping westward?" "Yea."

'T would be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; 't was a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

~ William Wordsworth

Brazil

 "that there must be a link between peas and Brazil--not just because Brazil is Brezilya in Turkish and the word for pea is bezelye but also because the Brazilian flag has, it seems, an enormous pea on it."

~Istanbul: Memories and the City

Orhan Pamuk

book not necessarily recommended, but this part made me laugh out loud