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1 " Tell me what you want, and I'll tell you who you think you are. Tell me what you fear, and I'll tell you who you really are. "
― Brunonia Barry , The Fifth Petal
2 " The tree is a mediator between the living and dead. Where a limb is malformed, where her branches twist and wave into one another, or where a wound on bark remains unhealed, all these imperfections are sacred pathways between the realms. "
3 " ... once you start demonizing groups of people, when you make them the other, you can justify doing just about anything you want to the, can't you? Look at history if you don't believe me. "
4 " There is lace in every living thing: the bare branches of winter, the patterns of clouds, the surface of water as it ripples in the breeze.... Even a wild dog's matted fur shows a lacy pattern if you look at it closely enough. "
― Brunonia Barry , The Lace Reader
5 " We all find means of anesthesia. "
6 " There is no wrong answer. Even so, it is easy to receive wrong results, simply by asking the wrong question. "
7 " You know who you are. You have always been other. "
8 " I am a cypher...I carry no weight, no worth, no influence. I represent nothing. I do not exist. "
9 " My name is Towner Whitney. No, that's not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time. I am a crazy woman... That last part is true. "
10 " I'll pit my God against your god any day, I say to the Calvinists. It's not their god I'm praying to.... The God I'm praying to is neither male nor female. My God is the one who exists apart from all of men's agendas, the God who takes you away when there is no possible place you can go. "
11 " I realize the selfishness of children. We love them, and we revolve around their universe, but they don't revolve around ours. "
12 " If you had done your calculations properly, there would be a moment when you found that the star you were looking for was exactly where it should be on the horizon. In that instant the universe made sense, and you knew no matter what else happened in the world, the stars would always tell you where you were, and when they did, you would always be able to find your way home. "
― Brunonia Barry , The Map of True Places
13 " Nevertheless . . was a word, certainly, but much more than a word, it was a concept. "Nevertheless" was what you said when you were not going to budge, whether expressing an opinion or an intention. It was a statement, not a question, and the only word in the English language to which it was pointless to respond. If you wanted to end a conversation or an argument "nevertheless" was your word. "
14 " All forgiveness is self-forgiveness. That’s what he says. But I do not yet know how to forgive. Or who, in the end, really needs to be forgiven. "
15 " I like soup, do you like soup? "
16 " In the realm between life and death, time, as we know it, does not exist. "
17 " Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you think you are. Tell me what you fear, and I’ll tell you who you really are. "
18 " My God is the one who exists apart from all of men’s agendas, the God who takes you away when there is no possible place you can go. "
19 " The same way they celebrate the witches, who never existed at all in the days of the witch trials but who thrive here in great numbers now. "
20 " All forgiveness is self-forgiveness "
