Reflections of a Recreational Reader

Even with new projects and programs, fund raising, adapting and integration, my Peace Corps service has given me plenty of time to catch up on recreational reading. From Great Books to Chick Lit, biographies to memoirs, I’ve spent afternoons with nearly every genre. I’ve been keeping track of favorite quotes and meaningful passages since I first arrived in Namibia. Ultimately, what I’ve taken away from these authors and their stories may say as much about my experience as my blogs and journals do…

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you will discover will be wonderful. What you discover will be yourself --Alan Alda

What made being alive almost worthwhile for me, besides music, was all the saints I met who could be anywhere. By saints, I mean people who behave decently in a strikingly indecent society --Kurt Vonnegut

There are times when, as ordinary as it all appears, it was beyond my imagination --Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is just that quiet voice at the end of the day that says: I’ll try again tomorrow --Anne Hunninbale

In any city, at any hour … there are people sleeping … But…there are a few people who are awake at this hour who are both awake and dancing, and its here that we need to be…To be awake with the people who were still dancing --You Shall Know Our Velocity

Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still find calm in your heart --A greeting card

Every soft foot needs a hard sole --In the Time of Butterflies

Life only gets exciting when it gets tough --Last Song of Dusk

What do we do when we finally reach the summit and flop down? We weep. All inhibitions stripped away. We cry like babies. With joy for having scaled the mightiest of mountains, and with relief that the long torture of the climb has ended --Barry Bishop

Do not conquer the world with force, for force only causes resistance --Tao Te Ching

I am grateful for this trouble around me because it gives me an opportunity to see how fortunate I am --Chuang-Tse

If we citizens do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our own imagination at the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams --Yann Martel, The Life of Pi

The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a way of making life more bearable --Kurt Vonnegut

There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement --Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice