Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-04-27:

"It felt important spiritually to go to weddings: to give balance to the wakes and memorial services. People shouldn't have been set in motion on this planet only to grieve losses. And without weddings there were only funerals. I had seen a soccer mom become a rhododendron with a plaque, next to the soccer field parking lot, as if it had been watching all those matches that had killed her. I had seen a brilliant young student become a creative writing contest, as if it were all that writing that had been the thing to do him in. And I had seen a public defender become a justice fund, as if one paid for fairness with one's very life. I had seen a dozen people become hunks of rock with their names engraved so shockingly perfectly upon the surface it looked as if they had indeed turned to stone, been given a new life the way the moon is given it, through some lighting tricks and a face-like font. I had turned a hundred Rolodex cards around to their blank sides. So let a babysitter become a bride again. Let her marry over and over. So much urgent and lifelike love went rumbling around underground and died there, never got expressed at all, so let some errant inconvenient attraction have its way. There was so little time." -- Lorrie Moore, in the short story Thank You for Having Me.

[ http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Thank-You-for-Having-Me]

(submitted to the mailing list by Terry Labach)

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-05-24:

"An absence isn't a weakness if you make it someone else's problem." -- David Merrill, writing about Anthony Robles, 2011 NCAA Division 1 wrestling champion, who has only one leg.

[ http://deadspin.com/the-one-legged-wrestler-who-conquered-his-sport-then-l-452888181]

(submitted to the mailing list by Prem Pahlajrai)

[Neither of these quotations really quite fit my father, but I picked them for today because they each made me think of him. After sixteen years, I still miss Dad.]