Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga - stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.
Edward Hoagland
Source: Wikipedia
The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.
age sense earth question green stage dying
City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind's eye the notion of a better life ahead.
rules life people mind thetimes time countrylife city eye cities country rule kill
Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.
sleep silence listening noise
True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow.
solitude true snow colors
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
order enjoy possibility dog open train
Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.
disaster life man work desire risk woman start air touch part relief result injury breathe
There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer.
life age nature time human city summer height adolescence
Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.
women men run hug
There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.
people smile wise calm state source
Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.
righteousness people city country cleverness distrust
There aren't many irritations to match the condescension which a woman metes out to a man who she believes has loved her vainly for the past umpteen years.
man past woman
Men often compete with one another until the day they die; comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.
men day die
Country people do not behave as if they think life is short; they live on the principle that it is long, and savor variations of the kind best appreciated if most days are the same.
principles life people countrylife
Many people have believed that they were Chosen, but none more baldly than the Texans.
people
character
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