12
" Love never lies and it never tries, it's unafraid and heaven made.Keep the faith, surrender the time, just like a grape we need to ripen on the vine.Be like a fairy, constantly glow, leave a trail of love wherever you go.Do not try to make sense of this world. Do try to know yourself and to grow yourself while in it.The more you are, the more you have.Rather than make the best of a situation, make the best situation. Create, don't negate.Keep the dream alive and the heart open.Be your most glorious self, and even better, be indifferent to what anyone may think of it.Don't fear the dark, it's helping you find the light. We wouldn't know morning, if we didn't see night.Never give to say you've given, never shy away from a good cry, never stop a laugh from happening, and always wonder, why?Don't get mad, get motivated! "
15
" In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil. I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn't hold out any longer than that first poor fool did. "
― Rick Bragg