well this won’t be an EXACT quote… but the piece that’s stayed with me for 20 years now was not even "in" a book it was on the back cover. It was on the back cover of the hardback version of "Revolution from Within" by Gloria Steinem.

She tells this very short story about how she wished she could go back in time and talk to her younger self and tell herself to be kinder to herself. I can’t phrase it the way she did. But she wished her older self could tell her younger self to cut herself some slack.

I’ve never forgot that. I take it into account all the time. If i’m talking negatively to myself I’ll pretend to be 20 years older and wonder what i would say to someone my age saying the same things. It does wonders.

It seems each time I pick up a book, I find something else to carry away.  Isn’t the written word wonderful? 

Here’s one of my favorites:

"Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human." 

Fyodor Dostoevsky -Crime and Punishment

My grandchildren love this one - I learned it when I was 8 from a gift my grandmother gave me as I am an avid reader:

"When twilight draws her curtain down and pins it with a star;

Remember that I am your friend though we may wander far."

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables

Hello ladies. I am new to this site and this is my first post. My first thought of the passage that stayed with me was a passage from "Mounains of Spices" by Hannah Hurnard. It’s the sequel to "Hind’s feet on High Places." I can’t quote the passage, but it was a passage describing the death of two ladies. They went on a picnic with some others and when it was time for them to go, the Shepherd took their hands and walked them across the stream into the higher mountains. As they crossed the stream, their bodies were washed off of them and their spirits stepped out on the other side.

Also, I once had a greeting card that said, "I love you not only for who you are, but for who I am when I am with you." I’m sorry to say I haven’t yet experienced that kind of love.

And lastly, I have a favorite song lyric from Keith Green’s song, "Radically Saved:"

"Black is black, and white is white;

Hell is hot and sin ain’t right;

God is Holy and Christ is coming;

and righteousness will prevail."

btw, Joan and Susan, last year on America’s Got Talent, there was a Sinatra impersonator who was incredible! His name is Paul Salos’ he’s 72 years old and he’s been doing Sinatra for 40 years. You can look him up on youtube.com.

It’s from Bruce, in the song The Wish, a tribute to his mother Adele, and it along with many other of his "mom songs" (there are so many), inspire me on the path of being the kind of mother I want my children to have: 

I remember in the morning hearing your alarm clock ring
I’d lie in bed and listen to you getting ready for work
The sound of your makeup case on the sink
And the ladies at the office, all lipstick, perfume and rustling skirts
And how proud and happy you always looked walking home from work

If pa’s eyes were windows into a world so deadly and true
You couldn’t stop me from looking but you kept me from crawling through
And if it’s a funny old world where a little boy’s wishes come true
Well I got a few in my pocket and a special one just for you

Sheila, you might also enjoy another great "mom song" by Bruce: Jesus Was An Only Son 

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

"Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand"

I just always thought "The Stolen Child" was beautiful. I first read it in high school in a book of Yeats poetry I found in the library, and it’s been my favorite for years.