Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells

• Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.--Katherine Mansfield
• It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time.
• If you can't sing it good, Siddalee, at least sing it loud.
• I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it's gonna come.
• It's the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.
• Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves those black letters marching across the white pages. When Sidda falls in love with a book, she is positive that she is the very first person in the world to have discovered it, poor child. Thinks that no one else anywhere, anytime, has ever heard of the book.
• To Sidda and me, books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.
• Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.
• When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.
• Don't ever underestimate the power women have over men. And don't ever let them know you have it either.
• You can't run away from things, Siddalee. You've got to stay in this house where your life is. Don't you think I want to run off and hide in a bookmobile or join the circus? We all do. But we have responsibilities.
• You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.
• I can do anything in the world I want and no one can stop me. I am a born leader.
• Thoughts have a lot of power. Just thinking about committing a sin is the same thing as actually doing it.
• There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness might be next to godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.
• I take my quiet wherever I can find it.
• God will not allow us to be overwhelmed by temptation, but with it He will provide a way of escape so that we will be able to endure it.
• I can never fall asleep until everything is organized and ready to go at the foot of my bed.
• It's running my mouth so much that gets me in trouble to begin with.
• All I am is Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee, and after a while people get sick of me.
• If it's one thing I learnt in this life, it's to bite my tongue when I got to, and yell when I don't.
• You can't look back. Good Lord didn't mean for us to hate ourself. He made us to love ourself like He do, with wide open arms.
• Cause some people God give to you to look out after, and that just be how it is.
• Don't every worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep. Then let the Lord's mighty vision see you through the night.
• I'd like to tell her more, but you just never do know how people are gonna react to things.
• You learn to take your thrills where you can find them.
• Well, we got ourselves into this thing, we got to get ourselves out.
• A man's gotta have somebody to hand his land over to, or what the hell's it all for?
• Lots of times people make the mistake of underestimating you on account of the way you talk.
• It's by a man's eyes that you know his intelligence.
• If we're fighting a war, then let's get it the hell over with!
• You gotta turn it over, is what you gotta do. You gotta give it to the Lord.
• You oughta thank the Good Lord you got two legs to stand on.
• I go to church on Sunday, sleep good at night, and when there's a rain comin in, I stand out on my porch and smell the earth.
• Judgin up to the Good Lord hisself and nobody else.
• Some people, they is gonna be unhappy no matter what. You could give them every'thing you have. Take the blood out you own body and give it to them and they'd still be miserable. That just be the way it is.
• We done lived down the road from sadness all our lives. But you gotta know what sadness be yours and what be somebody else's, is what I say.
• You think somebody gonna throw us a party or somethin for gettin through all this? No sir. You don't get no trophies for livin the life you born into. It just be your job, and you lucky if you can do the work set out in front of you and not fret if it seem puny. Maybe the Good Lord ain't give us nothin but puny things. Little bitta things sparkin through our days and nights. In the fields and in the mornin air, little bitta things that if you blink your eye, they be gone and ain't never comin back.
• I have always found that if you are ever in doubt about how to behave, just act like a hostess, and it'll see you over the rough spots.
• You simply must have decent telephone manners in this world or you will get absolutely nowhere.
• Hold on. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. You have all the time in the world.
• We all need blessings in our cribs, we all need protection from the witches.

1/20/2010--12:04 pm