Hope knew that her thinking regarding books went contrary to the general sentiment of the people of Eden. Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy, and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not give you clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers.
David Bergen
We at this church will not perform the civil unions of same-sex couples because it would be un-Biblical to do so.
church couples
I didn't expect to be up here. I'm quite humbled by this and the main reason I'm humbled is that there were four others who could easily be up here; that humbles me. We have so many good writers in this country.
reason good writers country
It's somewhat of a contradiction,.. I guess the quieter the voice, the more necessary it is to push it. It's not going to leap out at you and scream. I also can't control how a book is marketed. To say the book marketing is aggressive, fine, I'm happy with that. Push the book. That doesn't mean that my personality or writing style changes.
style writing voice personality control happy book marketing contradiction scream
I've always been interested in the emotion of longing
emotion longing
On the literal level, Ada is looking for her father. Charles's search is more psychological. Physically, he's looking for the village [where he killed a Vietnamese child point-blank]. By extension, if he finds the village, he thinks something will happen and he'll be absolved -- find completion. I suppose it's symbolic of what happened to him in Vietnam. Ada is still looking for what he was.... One can never find certainty but that won't stop her from trying. The quest beyond finding him physically is to discover where he comes from, where he's been, what happened to him and by extension what happened to her.
vietnam search child psychological find completion stop discover father certainty quest finding
reading information clean money people time real world living book conversation eden lose thinking waste dreamers read garden sentiment hope books give short
Hope had finally learned to live in the present. Often, when she found herself in a space of tremendous comfort, usually out in nature, or when her children were safe all around her and on the verge of going to bed, she forced herself to take stock. Here you are, Hope, she told herself. What a beautiful moment. You may never again be here at this spot, enjoying the calm. This habit of hers, to acknowledge the immediate and elusive joy of the present, kept her sane.
nature children comfort calm
The most difficult part of being a mother was to observe the mistakes of one's children: the foolish loves, the desperate solitude and alienation, the lack of will, the gullibility, the joyous and naive leaps into the unknown, the ignorance, the panicky choices and the utter determination.
motherhood
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