Calpurnia Quotes

Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.

One day I would have all the books in the world, shelves and shelves of them. I would live my life in a tower of books. I would read all day long and eat peaches. And if any young knights in armor dared to come calling on their white chargers and plead with me to let down my hair, I would pelt them with peach pits until they went home.

It's amazing what you can see when you just sit quietly and look.

Es asombroso lo que uno puede ver cuando se sienta a mirar.

It was too bad, but sometimes a little knowledge could ruin your whole day, or at least take off some of the shine.

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.

It means that we should celebrate today's failure because it is a clear sign that our voyage of discovery is not yet over.

When two people love each other, they do not comply and does not dominate, only complement each other.

But my mother's life was a never-ending round of maintenance. Not one single thing did she ever achieve but that it had to be done all over again, one day or one week or one season later. Oh, the monotony.

If only others knew that Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, proper, well-behaved spinster, entertained deep-seated and certainly unladylike thoughts about fictional heroes.

Lepida, has anyone ever told you that you're a cruel spiteful selfish slut?...You're vicious. You're unprincipled. You mistreat your slaves and abuse your daughter. And furthermore you're the worst, most neglectful, most criminal wife in Rome. I think we can go now.

We had been so close to missing each other, he and I. He had turned out to be the greatest gift of all.

She winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name - a name with which no one but a helplessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child.

It is better to travel with hope in one's heart than to arrive in safety. . . . We should celebrate today's failure because it is a clear sign that our voyage of discovery is not yet over. The day the experiment succeeds is the day the experiment ends. And I inevitably find that the sadness of ending outweighs the celebration of success.

{Calpurnia)"My mother…she’s desperate for a daughter she can dress like a porcelain doll. Sadly, I shall never be such a child. How I long for my sister to come out and distract the countess from my person." He joined her on the bench, asking, "How old is your sister?" "Eight," she said, mournfully. "Ah. Not ideal." "An understatement." She looked up at the star-filled sky. "No, I shall be long on the shelf by the time she makes her debut." "What makes you so certain you’re shelf-bound?" She cast him a sidelong glance. "While I appreciate your chivalry, my lord, your feigned ignorance insults us both." When he failed to reply, she stared down at her hands, and replied, "My choices are rather limited." "How so?" "I seem able to have my pick of the impoverished, the aged, and the deadly dull.

By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat.

I don't have that many days left," he said as we sat together in the library. "Why would I want to spend them on matters of drainage and overdue accounts? I must husband my hours and spend every one of them wisely. I regret that I didn't come to this realization until I reached fifty years of age. Calpurnia, you would do well to adopt such an attitude at an earlier age. Spend each of your allotted hours with care.

I found myself wondering what life would be if Jem were different, even from what he was now; what I would do if Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help and advice. Why, he couldn't get along a day without me. Even Calpurnia couldn't get along unless I was there. They needed me.

I had never classified myself with other girls. I was not of their species; I was different. I had never thought my future would be like theirs.

When it was time to play Boo's big scene, Jem would sneak into the house, steal the scissors from the sewingmachine drawer when Calpurnia's back was turned, then sit in the swing and cut up newspapers. Dill would walk by, cough at Jem, and Jem would fake a plunge into Dill's thigh. From where I stood it looked real.

My grandfather had given me Mr. Darwin's book to read. He had given me the possibility of a different kind of life. but none of it mattered. Instead there was The Science of Housewifery for me. I was blind; I was pathetic. The century was about to change, but my own little life would not change with it.

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.

What could I say? (...) That I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all? (...) Encouraging me the way he had, knowing that there was no new century for me, no new life for this girl.

That night, when SanJuanna had cleared the main course and brought dessert in, my mother called for quiet and said, "Boys, I have an announcement to make. Your sister made the apple pies tonight. I'm sure we will all enjoy them very much." "Can I learn how, ma'am?" said Jim Bowie. "No, J.B. Boys don't bake pies," Mother said. "Why not?" he said. "They have wives who make pies for them." "But I don't have a wife." "Darling, I'm sure you will have a very nice one someday when you're older, and she'll make you many pies. Calpurnia, would you care to serve?" Was there any way I could have a wife, too? I wondered as I cut through the browned C and promptly shattered the entire crust.

Lula," I said, "do you ever think about getting married?" I guess I do. Doesn't everybody?" You have to let your husband kiss you once you're married. And you have to kiss him back." No," she said. Yes." I nodded, as if I knew everything there was to know about husbands and wives kissing. "That's what they do together." Do you have to?" Oh, absolutely. It's the law." I never heard of that law," she said dubiously. It's true, it's Texas law," I said.

I would read all day long and eat peaches. And if any young knights in armor dared to come calling on their white chargers and plead with me to let down my hair, I would pelt them with peach pits until they went home.

It was the first morning of the first day of the new century. Snow blanketed the ground. Anything was possible.

Algún día iba a tener todos los libros del mundo, estantes y estantes llenos. Viviría en una torre hecha de libros; me pasaría el día leyendo y comiendo melocotones. Y si algún caballero con armadura se atrevía a acercarse en su blanco corcel y a rogarme que le lanzara mi trenza, lo acribillaría con huesos de melocotón hasta que se marchara.

Before she dozed off, it occurred to her that for the first time in her life Calpurnia had said “Yes ma’am” and “Miss Scout” to her, forms of address usually reserved for the presence of high company.

They all knew this, but this didn't stop them from good-naturedly crowding around the front door every time it opened, every single time, despite the fact that they were never -EVER- let into the house. I loved this particularly fine thing about dogs: Despite a lifetime of denied entrance, hope never died in their hearts.

Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and and mighty! Yo' folks might be better'n the Cunninghams but it don't count for nothin' the way you're disgracin' 'em.

es más importante viajar con esperanza en el corazón que llegar sano y salvo.

And then it came to me, like the first shocking glimpse of the sun's disk rising over the horizon, what it was I did want to do. It was so obvious that I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. I only had to say it aloud. Did I have the courage to do that? To reveal it in the open air? (...) 'I think,' I said, then stopped. 'I think maybe I want to go to the university.

Na licu mu je bio zadovoljan, odsutan izraz. Svijetu je izgledao kao da je zagledan u prazno, ali ja sam znala da gleda u budućnost.

Alas, my lord, your wisdom is consumed in confidence.

Calpurnia’s tyranny, unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle grumblings of general disapproval.

An old campaigner, he did not speak until we were on the sidewalk. “What’s up?” “Jem’s got the look-arounds,” an affliction Calpurnia said all boys caught at his age.

There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,” murmured Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard.

Ben neredeyse altı yaşıma, Jem de yaklaşık on yaşına geldiğinde, yazları özgürlük alanımızın sınırları (Calpurnia'nın sesinin duyulma mesafesine göre) çizilmişti.

Calpurnia'ya, "Sen görürsün," dedim, ona gösterecektim; yakında, o başka bir işle uğraşırken Barker Girdabı'na gidip kendimi suya atacaktım, o zaman üzülecekti.

After one altercation when Jem hollered, “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!” I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.

Artinya, kita harus merayakan kegagalan kita hari ini, karena ini adalah pertanda nyata bahwa petualangan kita di dunia penemuan belum berakhir. Dan, mau tidak mau, aku harus mengakui bahwa kesedihan dalam mengakhiri sebuah eksperimen lebih besar daripada perayaan keberhasilannya.

That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages.

And so they went, down the row of laughing women, around the diningroom, refilling coffee cups, dishing out goodies as though their only regret was the temporary domestic disaster of losing Calpurnia.

I breathed again. It wasn’t me, it was only Calpurnia they were talking about. Revived, I entered the livingroom. Atticus had retreated behind his newspaper and Aunt Alexandra was worrying her embroidery

She was furious, and when she was furious Calpurnia’s grammar became erratic. When in tranquility, her grammar was as good as anybody’s in Maycomb. Atticus said Calpurnia had more education than most colored folks.

Never did I learn to think in terms of The Niggers. When I grew up, and I did grow up with black people, they were Calpurnia, Zeebo the garbage collector, Tom the yard man, and whatever else their names were. There were hundreds of Negroes surrounding me, they were the hands in the fields, who chopped the cotton, who worked the roads, who sawed the lumber to make our houses. They were poor, they were diseased and dirty, some were lazy and shiftless but never in my life was I given the idea that I should despise one, should fear one, should be discourteous to one, or think that I could mistreat one and get away with it.They as a people did not enter my world, nor did I enter theirs: when I went hunting I did not trespass on a Negro's land, not because it was a Negro's, but because I was not supposed to trespass on anybody's land. I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody, not just Negroes. I was given to understand that the reverse was to be despised. That is the way I was raised, by a black woman and a white man.

What was it about this woman? This plain, unassuming woman whom he had never before noticed? 'There is nothing about her that is plain or unassuming now.' And he hated himself for describing her as such. No... Lady Calpurnia Hartwell was coming into her own in a spectacular way- entirely new and thoroughly different from every woman he had known before her. And it was her heady combination of innocent curiosity and feminine will that had lured him into behaving the way he did. He wanted her. Viscerally. In a way he'd never wanted any woman before her.

- Es evidente que la razón de que hayas perdido el juicio de esa manera es habernos visto bailar juntos a lady Calpurnia y a mí. - ¿No estás exagerando un poco? - No lo creo, Gabriel. Has aterrorizado al pianista, has despedido al profesor de baile y has conseguido que nuestra hermana saliera huyendo a su habitación, sin mencionar esa insinuación de que no me estaba comportando como un caballero. - ¿Pretendes hacerme creer que no coqueteabas con ella de una manera impropia? -el tono de Ralston tenía un toque de testarudez. - ¿Coqueteando? Si. ¿De manera impropia? No.

As Dill explained, I found myself wondering what life would be if Jem were different, even from what he was now; what I would do if Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help and advice. Why, he couldn’t get along a day without me. Even Calpurnia couldn’t get along unless I was there. They needed me.

The crowd was visibly impressed with Jean Louise. Girls she saw every day asked her where she got her dress, as if they didn’t all get them there: “Ginsberg’s. Calpurnia took it up,” she said. Several of the younger boys with whom she had been on eye-gouging terms only a few years ago made self-conscious conversation with her.

I put on my thickest red flannel nightie and dove into bed. Mercifully, SanJuanna had taken the chill off the sheets with a warming pan. I intended to lie there for a while and take stock of my life. That's what you do at the end of the century, don't you? I think I actually fell asleep right away and only dreamed I was taking stock.

Temperatura me zaprepastila. Kako svijet može biti tako hladan?

Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.

Packing and balancing them was an art and, every year, scores of men across the South were crushed and killed by unstable loads.

la vida estaba llena de ocasiones para aprender y que uno debía tratar de captar todo lo que pudiera de un experto en un campo concreto, daba igual cual fuese.

La sensación de injusticia me abrumó. Entonces me vino a la cabeza la pregunta que —nada más ocurrírseme— comprendí que había querido plantear toda mi vida. —¿Y eso qué tiene de justo?

It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.

Lady Calpurnia." "I'd rather you call me Callie," she said hurriedly. "You don't like Calpurnia?" The words were lazily curious. She shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. "Callie..." He coaxed, the words spoken in a deep, liquid tone that she was certain he used whenever he wanted something from a woman. She would not be surprised to discover that it always worked.

One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage collector. “Mister Jem,” he said, “we’re mighty glad to have you all here. Don’t pay no ’tention to Lula, she’s contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She’s a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an’ haughty ways—we’re mighty glad to have you all.” With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew. First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosense lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed God Is Love, the church’s only decoration except a roto-gravure print of Hunt’s The Light of the World.

She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side. She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember.

He oughta be here by now,” said Calpurnia, pointing down the street. “Not runnin’, is he?” asked Mr. Tate. “Naw sir, he’s in the twitchin’ stage, Mr. Heck.” “Should we go after him, Heck?” asked Atticus. “We better wait, Mr. Finch. They usually go in a straight line, but you never can tell. He might follow the curve—hope he does or he’ll go straight in the Radley back yard. Let’s wait a minute.

Nosotros considerábamos las luciérnagas un regalo y las hormigas una plaga, pero por primera vez se me ocurrió plantearme el porqué de esa distinción. Todas ellas eran criaturas que intentaban sobrevivir a la sequía, igual que nosotros. Pensé que Viola debía rendirse y dejarlas tranquilas, aunque lo reconsideré al descubrir que la pimienta negra en la ensalada de huevo no era precisamente pimienta.

Yo pregunté con impaciencia: —¿Qué es esta cosa? Él levantó la vista, más bien sorprendido. ¿Por qué? ¿Se suponía que debía quedarme ahí en plan decorativo? ¿Por qué no aprovechar la ocasión para aprender algo nuevo? El abuelo me decía siempre que la vida está llena de ocasiones para aprender y que uno debía tratar de captar todo lo que pudiera de un experto en un campo concreto, daba igual cual fuese.

Eww," he said. I almost said the same thing, but unlike my brother, I had been annealed in the furnace of Scientific Thought. Scientists do not say such things aloud (although we may think them from time to time).

I consoled myself with Granddaddy's words on the fossil record and the Book of Genesis: It was more important to understand something than to like it. Liking wasn't necessary for understanding. Liking didn't enter into it.

Calpurnia was to blame for this. It kept me from driving her crazy on rainy days, I guess. She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible underneath. If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily, she rewarded me with an open-faced sandwich of bread and butter and sugar. In Calpurnia’s teaching, there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me. “Everybody

You will cease risking your reputation, Calpurnia, at least until Juliana is out. That means no unchaperoned visits to London public houses. Strike that. No visits to London public houses whatsoever. And, if you could see to it that you avoid leaving the house in the dead of night, that would be excellent." "Certainly, my lord." Callie turned willful, her courage bolstered by drink. "And how would you suggest I prevent men from inappropriately accosting me in my ancestral home?

Ao fim e ao cabo, o que era um livro para mim? Na verdade, o que é que isso interessava? Um dia teria todos os livros do mundo, prateleiras e prateleiras cheias deles. Viveria numa torre de livros. Leria durante todo o dia e comeria pêssegos.

Zadnji snijeg pao je prije više desetljeća. (...) Kako ijedna vrsta može preživjeti snijeg ako je riječ za snijeg zaboravljena? (...) Bilo je to prvo jutro prvoga dana novoga stoljeća. Tlo je bilo pokriveno snježnim pokrivačem. To je značilo da je sve moguće.

I don't understand the modern educational system at all." "Neither do I. We have to learn sewing and knitting and smocking. In Deportment, they make us walk around the room with a book on our heads." Granddaddy said, "I find that actually reading the book is a much more effective way of absorbing.

While Walter piled food on his plate, he and Atticus talked together like two men, to the wonderment of Jem and me. Atticus was expounding upon farm problems when Walter interrupted to ask if there was any molasses in the house. Atticus summoned Calpurnia, who returned bearing the syrup pitcher. She stood waiting for Walter to help himself. Walter poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a generous hand. He would probably have poured it into his milk glass had I not asked what the sam hill he was doing. The silver saucer clattered when he replaced the pitcher, and he quickly put his hands in his lap. Then he ducked his head. Atticus shook his head at me again. “But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup,” I protested. “He’s poured it all over—” It

Không cần thiết phải nói mọi điều mình biết. Như thế không đúng kiểu quý cô. Thứ hai, người ta không thích có ai đó xung quanh biết nhiều hơn họ. Nó làm cho học bực thêm. Cô sẽ không làm thay đổi được bất kỳ ai trong số họ bằng cách nói đúng, tự họ phải cảm thấy muốn học hỏi, và khi họ không muốn học, thi cô chẳng có thể làm gì ngoài việc im miệng hoặc nói bằng thứ ngôn ngữ của họ.

Callie, hoće li noćas stvarno biti smak svijeta?" "Ne, budalice. Djedica mi je sve objasnio. Stoljeća su samo način obilježavanja prolaska vremena. Vrijeme je izumio čovjek i došlo nam je iz Engleske." "Ali što ako svijet stvarno propadne? Tko će se brinuti za Jesseja Jamesa? Tko će hraniti Zeku?" Shvatila sam da ću tu raspravu okončati samo na jedan način. " Ne brini, Travise. Ja ću.

Could anything top the promise and potential of a blank page? What could be more satisfying? Never mind that it would soon be crammed with awkward penmanship, that my handwriting inevitably sloped downhill to the right-hand corner, that I blotted my ink, that my drawings never came out the way I saw them in my head. Never mind all that. What counted was possibility. You could live on possibility, at least for a while.

Lady Calpurnia. He had thought her a boon- a woman with an unparalleled reputation who had simply appeared. She was the perfect solution to the problem of preparing Juliana for her first season- or so he had thought. But then he had kissed her. And the kiss had been rather extraordinary. He scoffed at the thought. He had been frustrated and taken aback by the arrival of his sister. Any kiss would have been a welcome distraction. Especially one so freely given by such an enthusiastic, enjoyable partner. Ralston hardened almost instantly, remembering the way Callie felt in his arms, her soft sighs, the way she had so willingly given herself up to the kiss. He wondered if her excitement for kissing would translate into eagerness for other, more passionate, acts. For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine her in his bed, all enormous brown eyes and full, welcoming lips, wearing nothing but a willing smile.

E depois percebi. Afinal, não se tratava de uma espécie nova. Ambos pertenciam a um único tipo de gafanhoto. Aqueles que nasciam um pouco mais amarelados viviam até mais tarde durante a estação seca; os esverdeados, aqueles que os pássaros apanhavam, não duravam o suficiente para se tornarem grandes. Os mais amarelados sobreviviam porque estavam mais adequados a suportar um clima tórrido. Charles Darwin tinha razão. A evidência estava mesmo à minha frente.

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. “I missed you today,” she said. “The house got so lonesome ’long about two o’clock I had to turn on the radio.” “Why? Jem’n me ain’t ever in the house unless it’s rainin’.” “I know,” she said, “but one of you’s always in callin’ distance. I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you. Well,” she said, getting up from the kitchen chair, “it’s enough time to make a pan of cracklin’ bread, I reckon. You run along now and let me get supper on the table.” Calpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it. She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so. I was weary from the day’s crimes. After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, “Scout, ready to read?” The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me. “Something

[...] -Así que, como puede ver, que se encuentre aquí esta noche es cosa del destino. Es usted la solución perfecta. Es decir, asumiendoque no tenga por costumbre visitar a caballeros en sus alcobas a altas horas de la noche. [...] - No, señoría. Es la primera vez. Ralston sabía que era así y tomó nota mental para descubrir más tarde qué era lo que había motivado esa visita nocturna. - Y la última, espero. Al menos hasta que Juliana haya sido presentada con éxito. - Aún no he accedido a su petición. - Pero lo hará -dijo en tono petulante-. Y, como pago, obtendrá su beso. - Perdone que se lo diga -replicó ella con humor-, pero le da un valor muy elevadoa sus besos.

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

Granddaddy had told me about the wasp that could opt to be male or female while in a larval stage. An interesting thought. I wondered why human children weren't given that option in their grub stage, say up through age five. With everything I had seen about the lives of boys and girls, I would definitely choose to be a boy grub.

pasaron las horas y el sol se fue moviendo allá en lo alto (o, para ser exactos, lo hicimos nosotros aquí abajo, rotando despacio desde el día hacia la noche.

El señor Charles Darwin tenía razón, y la prueba de ello estaba en mi propio jardin

Y cuando algo es todo lo que sabes hacer, es fácil aguantar.

Era una lástima, pero a veces un poco de conocimiento podía estropearte el día, o al menos quitarle un poco de su esplendor.

Cama, libro, gatito y sándwich. Realmente, todo lo que una necesita en la vida.

rojo sobre negro, no hay veneno”.

¿Había algo que superase las promesas y el potencial de una página en blanco? ¿Qué otra cosa podía resultar más placentera? No importaba que pronto hubiera de estar cubierta de una tosca caligrafía; ni tampoco que mis renglones tomaran inevitablemente una inclinación descendente hacia la esquina derecha; ni que yo hiciera borrones con la tinta, ni que los dibujos nunca me salieran como había previsto en mi imaginación. Todo eso no importaba. Lo que contaba era la posibilidad misma. Una podía vivir de la pura posibilidadd, al menos por un tiempo.

La gente se niega a escuchar muchas veces. Tú puedes ponerles las pruebas delante, pero no obligarles a creer lo que no quieren creer.

aprendes más de un fracaso que de diez éxitos. Y cuanto más espectacular es el fracaso, más importante es la lección que aprendes.

A mí me parece que cualquier chica o jovencita con un cerebro en condiciones habría de tener derecho a alcanzar cuanto se propusiera.

En cuanto a las penas y decpeciones... -¿Si? -Solo son útiles como un medio para instruirse. Una vez que has aprendido de ellas todo lo posible, lo mejor es dejarlas de lado.

... hoy día yo hago la mayor parte de mis viajes en la biblioteca. Un hombre sentado en su sillón puede viajar a lo largo y ancho del mundo simplemente con un globo terráqueo y un atlas. Y yo ya encuentro todas las aventuras que deseo a estas altura de mi vida a través del microscopio y el telescopio

before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns. There was a full

I must husband my hours and spend every one of them wisely. I regret that I didn’t come to this realization until I reached fifty years of age. Calpurnia, you would do well to adopt such an attitude at an earlier age. Spend each of your allotted hours with care.

He said, The lesson for today is this: It is better to travel with hope in one's heart than to arrive in safety. Do you understand?

It turned out to be a young Dasypus novemcinctus, a nine-banded armadillo, about the size of a small loaf of bread. Although they were becoming more common in Texas, I'd never seen one up close before. Anatomically speaking, it resembled the unhappy melding of an anteater (the face), a mule (the ears), and a tortoise (the carapace). I thought it overall an unlucky creature in the looks department, but Granddaddy once said that to apply a human definition of beauty to an animal that had managed to thrive for millions of years was both unscientific and foolish.

—¿Tú qué quieres ser cuando seas mayor? Ninguna persona me había hecho esa pregunta en toda mi vida. Una pregunta tan trascendente, planteada con semejante inocencia por alguien a quien yo quería y que, a su vez, me quería. Y que no sabía aún lo suficiente como para abstenerse de plantearla. Se me encogió el corazón. Todo un abanico de opciones se abría ante sus ojos, pero no ante los míos.

—¿Por qué tengo que aprender a coser y cocinar? ¿Por qué? ¿Me lo puedes explicar, eh? Reconozco que era un mal momento para preguntárselo (estaba removiendo los últimos grumos de la salsa), pero hizo una pausa lo bastante larga para mirarme con perplejidad, como si le hablara en chino. —¿Qué clase de pregunta es esa? —Y volvió a lo suyo, agitando la salsa en la cacerola humeante y aromática. Por Dios, qué reacción tan deprimente. ¿Acaso la respuesta era una parte tan evidente y arraigada en nuestro modo de vida que nadie se paraba a planteársela? Si nadie a mi alrededor entendía siquiera la pregunta, nunca obtendría respuesta. Y sin respuesta estaba condenada a una vida de quehaceres exclusivamente femeninos.

La naturaleza (...) no se preocupa por las apariencias, salvo en la medida en que puedan resultar útiles para algún ser.