Walking Without Purpose

In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one’s mind incapable of definite purpose.

-Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 169-170.

Suddenly Five Years Old

I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.

-Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There, 36.

Long-Range Planning

In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won’t happen.

-John Steinbeck, Travels with Charlie, 777.

Giving Directions

The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

-John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, 771.

Psalm 119

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

-Psalm 119:32 (NIV)

Redemption in Creation

And so, when Scripture declares, God said, “Let there be...,” we may understand this as an immaterial utterance of God in His eternal Word, as the Word recalls His imperfect creature to Himself, so that it may not be formless but may be formed according to the various works of creation which He produces in due order.

-Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1, Chapter 4, Paragraph 9.