1
" They were loath to leave, for they felt, understandably enough, and rightly, I think, that as soon as they left their place, they were no longer quite themselves, but shadows or ghost, unrooted and uprooted .... the Kwakwaka'wakw mourned the loss of everything they knew in the most tactile and sensual way, the scents and sounds, the way the mist slid in and out of the firs, the wail of gulls, the sheen of seals, the melancholy exhalation of whales sliding by under the terrific stars. The clawing mud, the sift of sand, the scrabble of pebbles in the surf; the plain of owls, the scent of cedar, the bite of huckleberries from a certain thicket in a certain season --- they were convinced that these things were part and parcel of their being, and who is to gainsay them? "
― Brian Doyle , The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
2
" I am no heroic figure, but a man like any other, capable of selfish and selfless at once, of light and dark, courage and cravenness; all men are two men, always at war with each other, isn’t that so? We don masks, we perform parts, we adopt personas, but we are never one sort of man, and not another. Even the greatest among us knows this to be so; perhaps the wisest among us are those who admit it most easily. "
― Brian Doyle , The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
3
" He paused, for a while, and then smiled, and apologized for waxing philosophical, which is one of the lesser vices, and a habit that Mrs Carson, bless her perspicacity, said he would be wise to break; he was trying assiduously, he said, to only wax philosophical on Tuesdays, and so reduce the sin to a weekly thing, like whiskey or cigars, best enjoyed in parsimonious dosages. He paused again, lost in thought; "
― Brian Doyle , The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
7
" We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts. In so many ways we celebrate those we love as wife or husband, father and mother, brother and sister, daughter and son; but it is our friends whom we choose, and who choose us; it is our friends we turn to abashed, when we are bruised and broken by love and pain; it is our friends whose affection and kindness are food and drink to our spirits, and sustain and invigorate us when we are worn and weary. "
― Brian Doyle , The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
8
" We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts. In so many ways we celebrate those we love as wife or husband, father and mother, brother and sister, daughter and son; but it is our friends whom we choose, and who choose us; it is our friends we turn to abashed, when we are bruised and broken by love and pain; it is our friends whose affection and kindness are food and fink to our spirits, and sustain and invigorate us when we are worn and weary. "
― Brian Doyle , The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
