“By the wood-shed is a brook. It goes singing on. Its joy-song does sing in my heart.”

“I had sees there was joy-lights in her eyes and the looks he looked at her was like the looks the young husband of Dear Love does look at her when he is come home from work.”

“He is a most strong man. He put his arms around the penseé girl and he most lifted her off the ground. He did take out a ring of gold and he did tell her it was his mother's wedding ring. A butterfly went by - it was a cream one with a nice ribbon at its wing edge and pinkish spots. He did kiss her again. They didn't see the green caterpillar having sleeps under the hazel leaf. And he did say, "I want you to have all the love in the world." And he kissed her again.”

“Drawing is the art of being able to leave an accurate record of the experience of what one isn't, of what one doesn't know. A great drawer is either confirming beautifully what is commonplaceor probing authoritatively the unknown.::: Brett Whiteley :::”

“In a place of extreme violence and devoid of order, the practical subsumes the principle. I drifted down the path of bribery and corruption endemic to the streets of Baghdad”

“How did it begin?' Miss Cotton asked.When?' they replied.In the beginning,' Aunt Velma said.Wid tears,' they assured her.Wid tears,' Dahlia chimed.Ainsworth and the other children waited, but only silence responded to them. They were certain they had missed something; a few of them thought perhaps they had even fallen asleep. They asked those who sat beside them, but they could offer no explanation. Ainsworth looked at his mother and she was crying. He felt ashamed for her, but he nticed the woman beside her was also crying. He saw the faces of all the adults, including the men, and tears streamed down all their faces. The story was their memory. The story was the pain that produced tears. The story was what they had lived. The story was their petty jealousy that caused them to begrudge each other every minor success and plot ways to harm one another. The story was all that was lost to them because someone was too selfish to share, too mean to forgive, too blind to see the possibilities. The story was the beginning of their lives that had been old them over and over, but out of embarrassment they hadn't listened; so when the time came for those tales to be useful, they didn't know the details and groped in self-darkness. The story was in the first drop of salty tear that was shed for them, that they shed for themselves. Ainsworht lookd around at his mother and the other adults crying and felt cheated, until he found his own tears. Salty. Sticky. Inseparable from him, like the pain of birth. That was indeed the beginning.”

“Blood in the water I sing, and one who shed it: deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it- weaving the ancient-most tale of the Sea's sending: singing the tragedy, singing the joy unending This is our shame- this is the whole Ocean's glory: this is the Song of the Twelve. Hark to the story! Hearken, and bring it to pass: swift lest the sorrow long ago laid to it's rest devour us tomarrow! ”