49416. Sunday Stills: Summer Beers at Great Divide Brewing in Denver, Colorado August 9, 2022August 9, 2022
48454. “One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated July 7, 2022
48453. “That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.” ― Deb Caletti July 7, 2022
48452. “I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.” ― Matt Groening July 7, 2022
48451. “Parents are like God because you wanna know they’re out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters July 7, 2022
48450. “My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.” ― Ellen DeGeneres July 7, 2022
48449. “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” ― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance July 7, 2022
48448. “There is no such thing as a “broken family.” Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.” ― C. JoyBell C. July 7, 2022
48447. “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. ” ― C.S. Lewis July 7, 2022
48446. “When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family. ” ― Jim Butcher July 7, 2022
48445. “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” ― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven July 7, 2022
48444. “Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related for better or for worse…and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.” ― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters July 7, 2022
48443.  “Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.” ― J.K. Rowling , Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix July 7, 2022
48442. “The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.” ― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages July 7, 2022
48441. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone July 7, 2022
48439. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ― Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina July 7, 2022
48438. “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring July 7, 2022
48437. “What is a wife for if not to produce sons? Why are you so obsessed with having a son? It’s so feudal! Don;t you know that men and women are equal now? My brother has no sons, so it’s my responsibility to continue the family line. Our daughters will join their husband’s family when they marry, and their names won’t be recorded in the Kong register. So they serve no purpose to us. Still clinging to those outmoded Confucian beliefs! I warn you the modern world will leave you behind. Huh! Just a few days on the road and already you’ve become worldly-wise! Don’t forget, you left school at eight while I graduated at sixteen, so I’ll always be cleverer than you. Stop being so patronising. We’re both fugitives now. Let’s see how far your male chauvinism gets you here.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48436. “Meili pitchers herself in Heaven Township again, sitting in a safe and peaceful yard, knitting quietly while inhaling deep breaths of the chemicals that prevent women conceiving. She doesn’t know how long it will take to travel from the fertile mountains of Nuwa to the sterile fields of Heaven Township, but at least she now has a sense of where happiness lies.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48435. “You have to inhale a lot of those chemicals before they can take effect. They’re called dioxins, apparently. The family planning officers there are very relaxed, because they know that however hard a man tries, he’s unlikely to get his wife pregnant. What a wonderful place it sounds!” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48434. “If you’re unlucky enough to have been born with a cunt, you’ll be monitored wherever you go. Men control our vaginas; the state controls our wombs. You can try to lock up your body, but the government still owns the key. That’s just women’s fate.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48433. “When our parents are alive, they stand in front of us, blocking our view of death. But once they’ve gone, we find ourselves at the cliff edge.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48432. “If they see a woman they suspect of being illegally pregnant, they pounce on her and drag her to a clinic for an abortion. They are paid fifty yuan for each woman they bring in.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48431. “Never rely on a husband for your happiness. The government persecute men, then men persecute their wives in return. And what do the wives do? If they have a child, they slap it to let off steam. If not, they drown themselves or swallow bottles of pesticide.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48431. “Decades of indoctrination, propaganda, violence and untruths have left the Chinese people so numb and confused, they have lost the ability to tell fact from fiction. They have swallowed the lie that the Party leaders are responsible for the country’s economic miracle, rather than the vast army of low-paid workers. The rabid consumerism encouraged in the last thirty years and which, along with inflated nationalism, lies at the heart of the China Dream is turning the Chinese into overgrown children who are fed, clothed and entertained, but have no right to remember the past or ask questions.” ― Ma Jian, China Dream July 7, 2022
48429. “It’s easy to be kind when you are poor. I’ve met a lot of kind people in my travels, but the cost of their kindness is exclusion from the outside world. As soon as a road is built, the kindness vanishes.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48428. “When people have no sense of self, relationships are just temporary distractions from the inner emptiness and fall apart at the first obstacle. My” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48427. “As you shrink back inside your body, your childhood fears flicker through your mind. All the feelings you’ve felt in the past have been sheltering inside your flesh.” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48426. “Families destroyed by Mao Zedong hang posters of him on their walls. Because they all know Chinese history changes as frequently as the Yellow River floods its banks.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48425. “no path is solitary, we all tread across other people’s beginnings and ends.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48424. “Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish. The first few years, I wrote very little. A single recurrent image was blocking my progress: a man lying naked on an iron bed, a sparrow perched on his arm, his chest illuminated by a cold beam of light. Those 10 years were a struggle to prove to myself the power and meaning of that single beam of light.” ― Ma Jian July 7, 2022
48423. “The Chinese alive today are reincarnations of torturers. The wronged souls of the past will haunt us for ever. We must pay for the sins of our ancestors.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48422. “When man’s spirit is in chains, he loses all respect for nature.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust July 7, 2022
48419. “From now on, every individual, irrespective of rank, must submit their dreams and nightmares to me for examination and approval. If they fail to comply, every dream they have ever had, and every dream they ever will have, will be deemed an illegal dream!” ― Ma Jian, China Dream July 7, 2022
48418. “But utopias always lead to dystopias, and dictators invariably become gods who demand daily worship.” ― Ma Jian, China Dream July 7, 2022
48417. “I paint as the mood takes me- it is an emotional release. But in this society moods and images can incriminate you. Writing is much safer for me. I can hide myself behind a maze of words and the details of people’s lives.” ― Ma Jian July 7, 2022
48416. “If there is road in front of me, I will follow it. I don’t mind where it goes, as long as it takes me forward.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China July 7, 2022
48415. “She discovered that women don’t own their bodies: their wombs and genitals are battle zones over which their husbands and the state fight for control – territories their husbands invade for sexual gratification and to produce male heirs, and which the state probes, monitors, guards and scrapes so as to assert its power and spread fear. These continual intrusions into her bodu’s most intimate parts have made her lose her sense of who she is. All she is certain of is that she is a legal wife and an illegal mother. I’d be better off dead.” ― Ma Jian, The Dark Road July 7, 2022
48414. “I see my skeleton walking down the street now. I’m walking behind it. Our feet touch the ground at the same time. I am my own shadow. The road we’re walking along looks familiar. The trees lining the pavement have been bleached by the sun. There are stone steps on my left. I climb them. This is the route I used to take after school. It’s very dark. The skeleton has disappeared.” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48413. “On July 3, 1968, Chairman Mao issued an order calling for the ruthless suppression of class enemies. He wanted all members of the Five Black Categories to be eliminated, together with TWENTY THREE NEW TYPES of enemy , which included anyone who had ever served as a policeman before the Liberation, or who had been sent to prison or labor camp. And not only them but their family and distant relatives as well. That’s a lot of people. Yes. Just think, the literal meaning of the Chinese characters for “revolution” is “elimination of life” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48412. Before the counter-culture revolutionary Li Lian was executed in 1971 for criticising the Cultural Revolution, pour policemen pushed her face against the window of a truck, lifted her shirt and cut out her kidneys with a surgical knife,’ Mau Sen said, his face stony and white. ‘I think that removing the organs of convicts while they are still alive is too much. It completely contravenes medical ethics.’ ‘This is a dissection class, not a political meeting,’ Sun Chunlin said.” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48411. “My mind flashed back to the Cultural Revolution, when a group of Red Guards pulled our neighbor, Granny Li, out of the opera company’s dormitory block and ordered the rest of us to bring out our thermos flasks. We then had to stand and watch as the Red Guards poured ten flasks of boiling water over Granny Li’s head.” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48410. “Before the sparrow arrived, you had almost stopped thinking about flight. Then, last winter, it soared through the sky and landed in front of you, or more precisely on the windowsill of the covered balcony adjoining your bedroom. You knew the grimy window panes were caked with dead ants and dust, and smelt as sour as the curtains. But the sparrow wasn’t put off. It jumped inside the covered balcony and ruffled its feathers, releasing a sweet smell of tree bark into the air. Then it flew into your bedroom, landed on your chest and stayed there like a cold egg.” ― Ma Jian, Beijing Coma July 7, 2022
48409. “I don’t know where I am going, I just know I had to leave. Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China July 7, 2022
48408. “I left Beijing because I wanted to be alone and to forge my own path, but I know now that no path is solitary, we all tread across other people’s beginnings and ends.” ― Ma Jian July 7, 2022
48407. “I feel I have walked onto a stage. The people around me are absorbed in their parts, putting on this great show, but nothing seems real. Every object looks like a prop. Since I have no part I am reduced to the role of a spectator, but there is nowhere to sit, so I have to mingle with the actors on stage. It is a terrible feeling.” ― Ma Jian July 7, 2022
48406. “I will not let a political party tell me how to live, when to die or what to believe in. Our souls are linked to the universe, but we can never see heaven, because our flesh ties us to the earth and the people around us. But when the people around you have lost their will to be free, then earth becomes a hell.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China July 7, 2022
48405. “Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.” ― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China July 7, 2022
48404. “We all leave markers behind—dead or alive—vibrations that trail behind us through all the places we’ve been. And if you know how to see them, the imprints of a person can be found—and followed.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48403. “The body heals quickly, an efficient machine, but the heart is worthless at such things. It burns long after the hurt has worn away.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48402. “He steps towards me, his dangerous, perfect, awful green eyes melting in with the dark room.” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
48401. “I think of him. Like a god unsettling the stars, reconfiguring the galaxies, his touch alters the arrangement of my cells. He destroys me then pieces me back together. But sloppily. I always feel a little more off-balance after I’m with him, seams tugging apart, my skin reddened in places. And still I keep going back.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48400. “We’ve always needed each other – as if we’d never be as strong alone as we were together.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48399. “How are the others? he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, his breathing slow and rhythmic. I know the sound of his lungs, of his beating heart – even during the gathering, among the pattering heartbeats of so many others – I can always pick out the measured rhythm of his. Because it belongs to me. I know it as well as my own.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48398. “Death has a way of leaving breadcrumbs, little particles of the past that catch and settle and stain.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48397. “L’amour est une enchanteresse — sauvage sournoise. Elle se glisse derrière vous, douce, tendre et tranquille, juste avant de vous trancher la gorge.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
48396. “I grew up in this room, in this loft overlooking the lake. I was born here too, seventeen years ago under a watery full moon while a rainstorm flooded the banks of the lake and turned the shore to mud. All Walkers are coaxed into the world when the moon is brightest. As if our birthright were calling to us.” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
48395. “…and I wonder if the things we keep from one another will break us apart. I wonder if the things we don’t say are worse than the lies we do. Like the illness, they will rot us from the inside out.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48394. “It’s been five years since she was here, but the memory replays itself across my mind as if I were standing beside her on that quiet afternoon. We all leave markers behind – dead or alive – vibrations that trail behind us through all the places we’ve been. And if you know how to see them, the imprints of a person can be found – and followed. But like all things, they fade with time, become less clear, until finally they are washed over with new memories, new people who have passed through here.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48392. “He pulls apart the threads of my mind that keep me tied together. My bones become heavy like river stones. My eyes flutter closed, and I hear a change in the air, like the ice splintering along the edge of the pond in winter, thin and delicate. I am the ice: sharp, deadly. I will break if Levi isn’t careful. I will slice him open if my edges are exposed.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48391. “I’ve often wondered if power does this to a man: unravels him slowly over time, doubt itching beneath his flesh until it’s all that’s left.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48390. “The town might be required to give you a parade.” He smiles full and big for the first time, a softness in his eyes. “The hero requirements in this town must be pretty low.” “We just really like parades.” Again he smiles.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
48389. “Ojalá pudiera abrirlo, cortarle la corteza dura, y ver qué esconde en su interior.” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
48388. “There is no history in a place until we make it, until you live a life worth remembering. We have made a history here – some of it was more folklore than truth, more fear than anything else. But some of it was good. Some of it lives inside each of us, the history of this wild, wild, land…. I wonder if she will love this place as I do. If she will feel rooted here at birth. If she will look up at the stars and know, we’re all just trying to find our way home.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48387. “Perhaps we all have oddity, some strangeness we keep hidden along our edges, things we see that we can explain things we wish for thing we run from.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
48386. “It’s hard not to feel drawn in by a legend that repeats itself without falter or fail each season.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
48385. “But right now, I only want to press myself close to him and let the sound of his heart drown out my thoughts.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48384. “We all have something we’d like to forget, some broken piece of ourselves we’d like to bury in the grave of our minds,” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48833. “We all leave markers behind—dead or alive—vibrations that trail behind us through all the places we’ve been.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48832. “Perhaps there is no life that makes sense without her: my little sister who has always reminded me of the night sky, endless and beautiful, and chaotic. My sister the universe. My sister the anomaly.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
48831. “We are safe in here, I want to tell her. But that would imply we aren’t safe out there, in the forest, in the mountains, in the dark. But the truth is: I don’t know anymore.” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
48380. “Redemption is somewhere out there in this dark, cold forest. I just need to find it.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38379. “They have eternity. Or even if it’s just one life, one long, singular life — that’s enough.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38378. “I think that maybe, possibly, he cares about me. But I’m also certain I’ll find a way to ruin it. Just give me time.” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
38377. “The woods are wild and rugged and unkind. They cannot be trusted” ― Shea Ernshaw, Winterwood July 7, 2022
38376. “I’ll stay on the island, reading fortunes from the smeared remains of tea leaves in white porcelain cups just like my mom used to before Dad vanished and never came back.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38375. “Just as broken. No matter where you go, there are cracks in the plaster, nails coming loose, you just have to decide where you want to piece yourself back together. Where the ground feels sturdiest beneath your feet.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38374. “My eyes are sore from crying, my lungs are sore from coughing, my knees are sore from kneeling, and my heart is sore from believing. If you are sore and tired, then come into these woods and sleep.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38373. “She was a shadow. She was the cruel, howling thing that could be heard during a full moon. She was the monster who crept into other children’s dreams. But this is how monsters are made: from innocent things.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38372. “Penance is a long, unforgiving thing. It endures, for without it, the past is forgotten.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38369. “But when you become familiar with the dark, with slithering, rotting things, you forget the feeling of sunlight. You forget what you should miss. And then there’s no going back.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38368. “Maybe this is love, the things we endure for the other, the willingness to face death, to stare it down, and not be afraid.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38367. “Forcing a girl to do anything she doesn’t want to is reason enough to kick your ass,” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38366. “I recognize in her a part of myself: the sadness that darkens her eyes, the heartbreak that has unraveled the loose threads woven inside her mind. I could be her. I could slip into madness and let it overtake me just like she has. Turn into a shadow. She and I are the same. We’ve both lost people we love. Both crushed by this town. Both know that the ocean takes more than it gives.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38365. “No matter where you go, there are cracks in the plaster, nails coming loose, you just have to decide where you want to piece yourself back together.” ― Shea Ernshaw, A History of Wild Places July 7, 2022
38364. “But how do you let yourself unravel in front of someone, knowing your armor is the only thing keeping you safe?” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38363. “Tonight’s party is the start of a season that will bring more than just tourist dollars—it will bring folklore and speculation and doubt about the town’s history. But always, every year without fail or falter, it also brings death.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022
38362. “And late at night when he folds her in his arms beside the crackling fire and kisses the space just behind her ear, she knows he’s falling in love with her. And maybe he’s loved her long before this, long before he pulled her from the water on the night of the summer solstice—the night that is a blur in her memory. But she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know about the before. Because she loves him now, with the wind seeping through the cracks in the cottage windows…the world stretched out before them. They have eternity. Or even if it’s just one life, one long, singular life—that’s enough.” ― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep July 7, 2022