Good Words from Good Books

"This fight for independence is on two fronts, inside and out.  We must continue to protest the British and their unfair rules.  And we must improve our society from within.  What good is a free India when its people do not consider their brothers and sisters as equals?  Social reform and civil disobedience must go hand in hand."  p. 83 "Do not ever let someone scare you out of doing what is right."  p. 191

"...one thing can be lots of other things...people are like that, too.  Livy's not just Old Livy or New Livy, she's every age she's ever been, and sometimes they get jumbled, but they're all in there...All the things I choose to put in my head are what make me, me.  I plan to choose wisely."p. 199-200 "Keep moving toward what makes you feel most alive, Livy."  p. 201

"...the Count had restricted himself to two succinct pieces of parental advice.  The first was that if one did not master one's circumstances, one was bound to be mastered by them; and the second was Montaigne's maxim that the surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness."  p. 419 "...he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds.  It unfolds...Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually.  Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew."  p. 402 "For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed.  Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour--disdaining even to wear a watch--he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or a stroll along the embankment..