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1 " Wasting talent is a sin. I’m not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. I’m not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. It’s just not courteous to not use or wear something that somebody’s given you as a well-meaning gift. It goes against Southern ways, not that God is Southern by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think He expects us to be an example for the rest of the country, as far as manners go. "
― Vicki Covington , Bird of Paradise
2 " All the men I know add that “hands that prepared it” line. They must know it’s right complimentary, an incentive to keep the women cooking. "
3 " The choice was whether to be sad and foolish or sad and reasonable. "
4 " Old age breeds the miracle of recall. You have no short-term memory atall; you can’t remember what you did minutes ago, but you can recall with exquisite clarity what you did on your fifth birthday and how it all felt. "
5 " Neva ought to smile more. It breaks her anxiety into tiny pieces of joy you want to gather up and hand back to her in your palms, as if to say, “See what you can make when you loose the reins. "
6 " I’m serious, now let me know every time you see her cry. The thought brings me great joy. Hope. "
7 " I was that kind of tired you feel when you’ve spent a day in a hospital while a loved one undergoes surgery and comes through all right, the loved one, of course, being myself, and Christmas being the surgical procedure. "
8 " I allowed myself a microscopic view into his ice-colored eyes. It was like viewing one of those photographs of the Arctic region – very foreign, exotic, clearly a place you’ve never dreamed of going. "
9 " If there’s one thing I learned in Alanon, it’s that you got to face the music because it just grows louder when you ignore it. "
10 " I’ve never known a tranquil atheist. Don’t they always look like they just sat on a tack? "
11 " Announcements are best kept intact until stomachs are satisfied. News settles easier when blood sugar is stable. "
12 " It was deep afternoon when shadows begin to grow, light becomes gold, and you realize that this particular day has reached its destiny. Like old age, it’s not yet over, but there’s no denying the time of day. "
13 " Mornings are fresh like babies, uncontaminated by events. I find them sad for that reason. They’re too fragile and naïve. "
14 " Explain to me, if you will, why alcoholism is a disease but can only be treated by attending little spiritual meetings in basements. "
15 " His parents were tiny people and knew how to dance. Scotty danced, too, with a variety of women, I’m sure, though I never acknowledged this to myself until years later. He knew charm. "
16 " Dinah and I were raised to believe money taints ordinary people, obstructs virtue, and makes a fool out of you. So, the inheritance was like a tiger somebody’d left on the doorstep of my house, and I had to figure out something to do with it. Having never seen a tiger up close, I perceived it as strange, frightful, and yet it pricked my curiosity enough to warrant a peek at its big body. But what to do with it? "