Callapidder Days

I’m joining Melissa this week, sharing some quotes from my recent reading.

If a book is a feeble and worthless book, the less said about it the better.

– English essayist Arthur Benson, as quoted in “Where to Find Book Reviews” by Cynthia Crossen, Wall Street Journal

The challenge for us lies not in knowing what to do, but in doing it.

– Neal Templin, “Saying Goodbye to Penny-Pinching,” Wall Street Journal

Neal is writing here specifically about making wise financial decisions, but really — doesn’t this quote apply to just about everything in our lives?

A cupboard door, beneath and beside Grandfather’s bookshelf, was open. The opening was small, but big enough for a person to fit through…

Henry knew what kind of cupboard this must be, and he suddenly understood how someone had been able to live in the house unseen. He knew what he should do. He should go wake up Uncle Frank, hand over the journals and the keys, tell him everything, and apologize.

Instead, he dropped onto his hands and knees, took a deep breath, and crawled into the cupboard.

– N.D. Wilson, 100 Cupboards, a book I am thoroughly enjoying.

Another Monday, another chance to play along with Melissa‘s The Week In Words carnival. To participate, just share quotes from anything you read this past week. Visit Breath of Life to check out other participants or to submit your own link.

This week, I started to read Thin Places, the spiritual memoir of an author I really like, Mary DeMuth. From the very beginning, she pulled me in.

Surely God is in the nooks and crannies of my life, stooping to earth to woo me. Sometimes I recognize Him, but usually I continue on the mundane path, not realizing a breath of a veil exists between the Almighty and myself…I live in the midst of holy moments, yet only in retrospect do I really see them. I claw at the seams of life, questioning God’s ways, seldom realizing that if I’d stop clawing, I would capture new glimpses of Him through the thin places. God woos me from behind the veil through the tragedies, beauties, surprises, simplicities, and snatches of my life I might overlook.

– Thin Places, p. 14-15

In other reading news, L.(3) has been requesting Dr. Seuss books nearly every night. I don’t complain — I admit to being fond of the whimsical, lyrical rhymes, even when they’re simple. All week, these passages from the Sleep Book have been running through my head:

Sleep thoughts
Are spreading
Throughout the whole land.
The time for night-brushing of teeth is at hand.

*****

The number
Of sleepers
Is steadily growing.
Bed is where
More and more people are going.

*****

Ninety-nine zillion,
Nine trillion and two
Creatures are sleeping!
So…
How about you?

Melissa from Breath of Life is starting a new carnival today: The Week in Words. The idea is simple. Participants post quotes from whatever reading they did that week — any quotes that stood out to them, touched them, made them laugh, whatever. And the source can be any kind of reading — blogs, magazines, books. As long as it’s something you read this week, it counts.

Here are a few quotes that caught my eye this week.

Victory in anything, from war to football, is founded in training and discipline. Nothing worthwhile is gained by sloth and wishful thinking. It’s not the will to win that counts, but the will to prepare to win.

– James Scott Bell in The Art of War for Writers

There is something better than settling for a vague, diminished, distant understanding of who Jesus is, what he has done, and why it matters. It is seeing him more clearly and following him more closely…There is something better than expecting to get everything we’re hoping for here and now. It is a willingness to wait for all our deepest longings to be fulfilled in heaven…There is something better than pursuing our own dreams of security and passion and significance. It is finding our security and passion and significance in God’s dreams for us.

– Nancy Guthrie in Hoping for Something Better
(a study of Hebrews I just began with a good friend)

“Catching a murderer isn’t like recovering a stolen bike,” [Encylcopedia Brown] said. “A murderer can stop a person’s growth in a terrible hurry.”

– Donald J. Sobol in Encyclopedia Brown and the
Case of the Dead Eagles
(which I’m reading as part of the Children’s Classics Mystery Challenge)

Visit Breath of Life to see other participants or to share your own quotes from this week!