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161 " That s what her mother said 'Stop your weeping and carry on "
― Elizabeth Gilbert , The Signature of All Things
162 " Your worth as a hostess consists in displaying the talents of your guests, not crowing about your own. "
163 " You are an idealist, which means that you are destined to be disappointed, and perhaps even wounded. You seek a gospel of benevolence and miracle, which leaves no room for the sorrows of existence. You are like William Paley, arguing that the perfection of every design in the universe is proof of God's love for us. "
164 " but she was old, and old women do tend to get pushed aside at big gatherings—even when they have footed the bill for that gathering. "
165 " One must bear what cannot be escaped "
166 " White Acre was not, in fact, a very large place. "
167 " Any place that one could not leave was not large—particularly if one was a naturalist! "
168 " But Alma thought it would kill her, this profundity of sorrow. She could not sound out the bottom of it. She had been sinking into it for a year and a half, and feared she would sink forevermore. She cried herself out on Hanneke’s neck, sobbing forth the harvest of her long-darkened spirits. She must have poured a tankard of tears down Hanneke’s bosom, but Hanneke did not move or speak, except to repeat, “There, there, child. It will not kill you. "
169 " One must bear what cannot be escaped,” she told Alma, as she rubbed clean her face. “You will not die of your grief—no more than the rest of us ever have. "
170 " Then you made an expensive error. "
171 " Plantain branches, like these ones here, Sister Whittaker, are also said to be symbolic of the human body. Because of that shape, plantains are used as gestures of peace—as gestures of humanity, you might say. You throw one on the ground at the feet of your enemy, to show your surrender or your willingness to consider compromise. "
172 " I was born into argument. Argument was my first nursemaid. Argument is my lifelong bedfellow. What’s more, I believe in argument and I even love it. Argument is our most steadfast pathway toward truth, for it is the only proven arbalest against superstitious thinking, or lackadaisical axioms. "
173 " Henry sailed from England in July of 1776. The stated objectives of Cook’s third expedition were twofold. The first was to sail to Tahiti, to return Sir Joseph Banks’s pet—the man named Omai—to his homeland. Omai had grown tired of court life and now longed to return home. He had become sulky and fat and difficult, and Banks had grown tired of his pet. The second task was to then sail north, all the way up the Pacific coast of the Americas, in search of a Northwest Passage. "
174 " Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls, and time will reveal who has it "
175 " What the deuce does religion have to do with being a good minister? It is a profession like any other profession, young man. You fit yourself to the task, and keep your opinions private. That is what all good ministers do—or should! "
176 " These adaptations did not "
177 " Those who are ill-prepared to endure the battle for survival should perhaps never have attempted living in the first place. The only unforgivable "
178 " crime is to cut short the experiment of one’s own life before its natural end. To do so is a weakness and a pity—for the experiment of life will cut itself off soon enough, in all our cases, and one may just as well have the courage and the curiosity to stay in the battle until one’s eventual and inevitable demise. Anything less than a fight for endurance is cowardly. Anything less than a fight for endurance is a refusal of the great covenant of life. "
179 " Alma learned that her father drank out of bottles in the evening, and that those bottles sometimes contained danger (raised voices; banishment), but could also contain miracles—such "
180 " Beauty is not required. Beauty is accuracy’s distraction. "