Homecoming Book Quotes

Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming...I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.

It's one thing to develop a nostalgia for home while you're boozing with Yankee writers in Martha's Vineyard or being chased by the bulls in Pamplona. It's something else to go home and visit with the folks in Reed's drugstore on the square and actually listen to them. The reason you can't go home again is not because the down-home folks are mad at you--they're not, don't flatter yourself, they couldn't care less--but because once you're in orbit and you return to Reed's drugstore on the square, you can stand no more than fifteen minutes of the conversation before you head for the woods, head for the liquor store, or head back to Martha's Vineyard, where at least you can put a tolerable and saving distance between you and home. Home may be where the heart is but it's no place to spend Wednesday afternoon.

It was, Jess suspected, the common preserve of all true readers. This was the magic of books, the curious alchemy that allowed a human mind to turn black ink on white pages into a whole other world.

There's other ways to travel." She was right. He had books, and there was no barrier to the places he could visit in his own mind.

Reading shapes a person. The landscape of books is more real, in some ways, than the one outside the window. It isn't experienced at a remove; it is internal, vital.

It was, Jess suspected, the common preserve of all true readers. This was the magic of books, the curious alchemy that allowed a human mind to turn black ink on white pages into a whole other world

It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming...I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.

Reading shapes a person. The landscape of books is more real, in some ways, than the one outside the window. It isn’t experienced at a remove; it is internal, vital.

Jess liked words. She collected them. In her favorite books, it was always in words that true power lurked, whether the enchantments and curses of the fairy tales she’d devoured when she was small, or the wills and deeds and legal loopholes she’d discovered in Dickens.

Why is my mother texting me about how hot you are?" "Weird. Think it has anything to do with the fact I just went to the bookstore in nothing but a patent leather trench coat?" Charlie replies with a screenshot of some texts between him and his mom. "Cottage guest is very pretty", Sally writes, then separately, "No ring." Charlie replied: "Oh? Thinking of leaving Dad?" She ignored his comment and instead said, "Tall. You always liked tall girls." "What are you talking about" Charlie wrote back, no question mark. "Remember your homecoming date? Lilac Walter-Hixton? She was practically a giant" "That was the eighth-grade formal" he said "it was before my growth spurt." "Well this girl's very pretty and tall but not too tall." "Tall but not TOO tall," I tell Charlie, "can also be added to my headstone. He says "I'll make a note." I say, "She told me you would bring wood over to the cottage for me." He says "Please swear to me you didn't make a 'too late for that' joke.

Papers, books, a laptop, a blackberry, and a half-empty cup of coffee littered its usually pristine walnut surface.

Suffering is a choice, and things will remain the way they are until you change your agreement with reality.

Stars are exploding everywhere throughout the universe, creating new worlds and possibilities. You can always choose to be one of them.

In describing a fairy story which they think adults might possibly read for their own entertainment, reviewers frequently indulge in such waggeries as: 'this book is for children from the ages of six to sixty'. But I have never yet seen the puff of a new motor-model that begun thus: 'this toy will amuse infants from seventeen to seventy'; though that to my mind would be much more appropriate.

To be real on this path you must be humble -- If you look down at others you'll get pushed down the stairs. If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path. There's no use hiding it -- What's inside always leaks outside. Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise -- If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca? If he has no compassion, what's the point? My heart is the throne of the Beloved, the Beloved the heart's destiny: Whoever breaks another's heart will find no homecoming in this world or any other. The ones who know say very little while the beasts are always speaking volumes; One word is enough for one who knows. If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this: Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too -- Whoever comes to this earth migrates back; Whoever drinks the wine of love understands what I say -- Yunus, don't look down at the world in scorn -- Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved's face, then you will not see the bridge on Judgment Day.

Huh!” said Olivia, with the contempt she reserved for alcohol, those who sold it and those who had a weakness for it. “The day your daddy spends Christmas Eve with two old lady bootleggers is the day I walk out of this house.

Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your deepest belonging.

Ten-year-old Jess liked words. She collected them. In her favorite books, it was always in words that true power lurked, whether the enchantments and curses of the fairy tales she'd devoured when she was small, or the wills and deeds and legal loopholes she'd discovered in Dickens.

What are you two doing?” Her uncle’s teasing voice came into the room before he did. But his voice was the second warning that they were no longer alone, since Violet had tasted his presence long before he’d actually stepped into her house. Ever since saving her and Jay at Homecoming, her uncle carried an imprint of his own. The bitter taste of dandelions still smoldered on Violet’s tongue whenever he was near. A taste that Violet had grown to accept. And even, to some degree, to appreciate. “Nothing your parents wouldn’t approve of, I hope,” he added. Violet flashed Jay a wicked grin. “We were just making out, so if you could make this quick, we’d really appreciate it.” Jay jumped up from beside her. “She’s kidding,” he blurted out. “We weren’t doing anything.” Her uncle Stephen stopped where he was and eyed them both carefully. Violet could’ve sworn she felt Jay squirming, even though every single muscle in his body was frozen in place. Violet smiled at her uncle, trying her best to look guilty-as-charged. Finally he raised his eyebrows, every bit the suspicious police officer. “Your parents asked me to stop by and check on you on my way home. They won’t be back until late. Can I trust the two of you here . . . alone?” “Of course you can—” Jay started to say. “Probably not—“ Violet answers at the same time. And then she caught a glimpse of the horror-stricken expression on Jay’s face, and she laughed. “Relax, Uncle Stephen, we’re fine. We were just doing homework.” Her uncle looked at the pile of discarded books on the table in front of the couch. Not one of them was open. He glanced skeptically at Violet but didn’t say a word. “We may have gotten a little distracted,” she responded, and again she saw Jay shifting nervously. After several warnings, and a promise from Violet that she would lock the doors behind him, Uncle Stephen finally left the two of them alone again. Jay was glaring at Violet when she peeked at him as innocently as she could manage. “Why would you do that to me?” “Why do you care what he thinks we’re doing?” Violet had been trying to get Jay to admit his new hero worship of her uncle for months, but he was too stubborn—or maybe he honestly didn’t realize it himself—to confess it to her. “Because, Violet,” he said dangerously, taking a threatening step toward her. But his scolding was ruined by the playful glint in his eyes. “He’s your uncle, and he’s the police chief. Why poke the bear?” Violet took a step back, away from him, and he matched it, moving toward her. He was stalking her around the coffee table now, and Violet couldn’t help giggling as she retreated. But it was too late for her to escape. Jay was faster than she was, and his arms captured her before she’d ever had a chance. Not that she’d really tried. He hauled her back down onto the couch, the two of them falling into the cushions, and this time he pinned her beneath him. “Stop it!” she shrieked, not meaning a single word. He was the last person in the world she wanted to get away from. “I don’t know . . .” he answered hesitantly. “I think you deserve to be punished.” His breath was balmy against her cheek, and she found herself leaning toward him rather than away. “Maybe we should do some more homework.” Homework had been their code word for making out before they’d realized that they hadn’t been fooling anyone. But Jay was true to his word, especially his code word, and his lips settled over hers. Violet suddenly forgot that she was pretending to break free from his grip. Her frail resolve crumbled. She reached out, wrapping her arms around his neck, and pulled him closer to her. Jay growled from deep in his throat. “Okay, homework it is.

As I thought about endings and – being a lover of fairy tales – I knew immediately that the deeply rooted last line in folk stories, ‘And they lived happily ever after’, is the core of what we think we know about endings. We hear it always in our hindbrain because it’s the last line most of us in the West have grown up with. That line stops the story at the point of greatest happiness. The wedding, the homecoming, the mystery unraveled, the villain disposed of, families reunited, babies born. If we went on in the story Cinderella, she might be whispered about in court: after all, her manners are not impeccable, she always has smudges of ash on her nose, and no one can trace her bloodline back enough generations. Perhaps she has grown fat eating all that rich food in the castle, and the prince’s eye has strayed. If we went on in The Three Little Pigs, the brother who builds with bricks will have kicked the other two lay-abouts out of his house, or hired them to run his successful company and they – angry at their lower status – plot to kill him. But, having little imagination, do it the only way they know how, by trying to boil him in the pot that still holds the memory of the wolf’s demise, so of course the brick building pig finds them out. But modern books pose a different problem. They present harder choices. It’s no longer fairy tale endings we are talking about, but the other stuff, more realistic, stronger, difficult, and maybe not happy-ever-after stuff.

I did exactly what you told me to do, Nick. Didn't you tell me to just write the stupid book already? And that even doing the worst thing on the planet had to count for something? Well I can't think of anything worse than what I'm about to do, which is why I think you deserve an explanation. And maybe after you read it you'll realize why I don't have the hope that you have. The truth is this: We begin and end alone.

There’s our homecoming picture. Last Halloween, when I dressed up as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume. There’s a receipt from Tart and Tangy. One of his notes to me, from before. If you make Josh’s dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it’s over. Pictures of us from Senior Week. Prom. Dried rose petals from my corsage. The Sixteen Candles picture. There are some things I didn’t include, like the ticket stub from our first real date, the note he wrote me that said, I like you in blue. Those things are tucked away in my hatbox. I’ll never let those go. But the really special thing I’ve included is my letter, the one I wrote to him so long ago, the one that brought us together. I wanted to keep it, but something felt right about Peter having it. One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It’s the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours. When he gets to that page, Peter stops. “I thought you wanted to keep this,” he said. “I wanted to, but then I felt like you should have it. Just promise you’ll keep it forever.” He turns the page. It’s a picture from when we took my grandma to karaoke. I sang “You’re So Vain” and dedicated it to Peter. Peter got up and sang “Style” by Taylor Swift. Then he dueted “Unchained Melody” with my grandma, and after, she made us both promise to take a Korean language class at UVA. She and Peter took a ton of selfies together that night. She made one her home screen on her phone. Her friends at her apartment complex said he looked like a movie star. I made the mistake of telling Peter, and he crowed about it for days after. He stays on that page for a while. When he doesn’t say anything, I say, helpfully, “It’s something to remember us by.” He snaps the book shut. “Thanks,” he says, flashing me a quick smile. “This is awesome.

There was a feeling in me like rising water. It broke over me, finally, leaving behind the thing I knew, but didn’t know. Nazareth had never been my home. Jesus had been my home. Now, with him gone, my home was on a hillside in Egypt. It was Yaltha and Diodora. It was the Therapeutae. Where else could I write with abandon? Where but there could I tend a library and animals both? Where else could I live by the utterances of my own heart? I breathed in, and it felt like a small homecoming.

I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit. I believe in the journey, not the arrival; in conversation, not monologues; in multiple questions rather than any single answer. I believe in the struggle to remake ourselves and challenge each other in the spirit of eternal forgiveness, in the awareness that none of us knows for sure what happiness truly is, but each of us knows the imperative to keep searching. I believe in the possibility of surprising joy, of serenity through pain, of homecoming through exile.

Odysseus’s travels involve such a terrific set of adventures that I tend to forget how much of the book is actually about his wife and son—what goes on at home while he’s traveling, how his son goes looking for him, and all the complications of his homecoming. One of the things I love about The Lord of the Rings is Tolkien’s understanding of the importance of what goes on back on the farm while the Hero is taking his Thousand Faces all round the world. But till you get back there with Frodo and the others, Tolkien never takes you back home. Homer does. All through the ten-year voyage, the reader is alternately Odysseus trying desperately to get to Penelope and Penelope desperately waiting for Odysseus—both the voyager and the goal—a tremendous piece of narrative time-and-place interweaving.

Nostalgia is an excessive sentimentality for the past, for home. It is associated with a yearning to return to a happy and safe period in your life. The word comes from nóstos, meaning “homecoming”, and álgos, meaning “pain” or “ache”. It’s all about the “good old days”, and “the good times”. Conservatism revolves around nostalgia. All right wingers are nostalgic, and suffer from future shock and future fear. Science is about extreme nostalgia for the material atoms of the ancient Greeks. Materialism is entirely dead in the era of quantum mechanics, yet scientists go on believing in matter anyway. They are highly conservative individuals unwilling to contemplate leaving the home materialism has provided for them. The last thing they want is to end up in the Unknown Land of Mind, where thought, not matter, is core reality. That would ruin everything for the scientific materialists and empiricists.

He felt like a character in a book. He thought of Mary Lennox as she discovered her secret garden. The blackberry bushes had become too thick to ride through and Percy dismounted, leaving Prince beneath the shade of a thick-trunked oak tree. He chose a strong whip of wood and started carving his way through the knotted vines. He was no longer a boy whose legs didn't always do as he wished; he was Sir Gawain on the lookout for the Green Knight, Lord Byron on his way to fight a duel, Beowulf leading an army upon Grendel. So keen was his focus on his swordplay that he didn't realize at first that he'd emerged from the forested area and was standing now on what must have been the top of a gravel driveway. Looming above him was not so much a house as a castle. Two enormous floors, with mammoth rectangular windows along each face and an elaborate stone balustrade of Corinthian columns running around all four sides of its flat roof. He thought at once of Pemberley, and half expected to see Mr. Darcy come striding through the big double doors, riding crop tucked beneath his arm as he jogged down the stone steps that widened in an elegant sweep as they reached the turning circle where he stood.

I was not able to sleep that night. To be honest, I didn’t even try. I stood in front of my living room window, staring out at the bright lights of New York City. I don’t know how long I stood there; in fact, I didn’t see the millions of multicolored lights or the never-ending streams of headlights and taillights on the busy streets below. Instead, I saw, in my mind’s eye, the crowded high school classrooms and halls where my friends and I had shared triumphs and tragedies, where the ghosts of our past still reside. Images flickered in my mind. I saw the faces of teachers and fellow students I hadn’t seen in years. I heard snatches of songs I had rehearsed in third period chorus. I saw the library where I had spent long hours studying after school. Most of all, I saw Marty. Marty as a shy sophomore, auditioning for Mrs. Quincy, the school choir director. Marty singing her first solo at the 1981 Christmas concert. Marty at the 1982 Homecoming Dance, looking radiant after being selected as Junior Princess. Marty sitting alone in the chorus practice room on the last day of our senior year. I stared long and hard at those sepia-colored memories. And as my mind carried me back to the place I had sworn I’d never return to, I remembered.

I’m alone,” she wrote, “and I want to share something with somebody.”4 Loneliness. It’s a cry. A moan, a wail. It’s a gasp whose origin is the recesses of our souls. Can you hear it? The abandoned child. The divorcée. The quiet home. The empty mailbox. The long days. The longer nights. A one-night stand. A forgotten birthday. A silent phone. Cries of loneliness. Listen again. Tune out the traffic and turn down the TV. The cry is there. Our cities are full of Judy Bucknells. You can hear their cries. You can hear them in the convalescent home among the sighs and the shuffling feet. You can hear them in the prisons among the moans of shame and the calls for mercy. You can hear them if you walk the manicured streets of suburban America, among the aborted ambitions and aging homecoming queens. Listen for it in the halls of our high schools where peer pressure weeds out the “have-nots” from the “haves.” This moan in a minor key knows all spectrums of society. From the top to the bottom. From the failures to the famous. From the poor to the rich. From the married to the single. Judy Bucknell was not alone.

she tried to make it festive.

When you are in the flow, you float to your destiny like a feather on the Breath of God.

To reach deeper degrees of joy, simply, get out of difficulty. Then watch what happens!

Salvation and Heaven are not a future events. Why would you wait for anyone to come when you are already here.

All it takes it to get out of difficulty and into simplicity. Then watch what happens!

It's not about being current. It's about being present.

When it comes to true sight, grant it, seeing is important, but equally, you must look.

Holding onto anger does nothing for your soul.

potatoes

Each book became for me the life I lacked, brought new adventure, gave me something to look forward to, gave new dimension to this parched and sterile world I live I.

I wrote this book for all of you who at different points in your life have found yourself living like someone you are not. You may have started acting different because of how you were treated, or what other people told you about yourself, or how you saw others acting. You have not felt comfortable or safe enough to truly be yourself or to feel at home in your identity. The recognized and unrecognized traumas of your past may have taught you to hide your gifts and voice in order to survive. This book facilitates your journey back to who you really are, so you can own your full identity and fly.

Instead,” he said, “We need to awaken each day as a disciple—as it says in Isaiah 50—to listen as one being taught. Our most important task is to surrender our will, our plans, our agenda for each day to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us on the cross.

One of the most meaningful things the Lord has shown me, especially since the war began, is the value and importance of living for Him one day at a time. To awaken each day aware of our complete dependence on Him, then very quickly, before our minds begin to fret and try to take charge, we need to yield our hearts and turn our thoughts toward Him. If we don’t, we wind up living like orphans fending for ourselves, as if everything is dependent on us. Our lives become full of anxiety and fear. Because deep inside, we know we’re not really in control. Think about it…how much of your life—even this week—went just the way you planned?

If you will not go to homecoming, I will bring homecoming to you.

Falling for you was like gravity. ~ Rex

As she stepped through the front door onto the verandah, a warm breeze brushed her face and she felt a heavy wave of deep familiarity: the smell of eucalyptus and sunbaked dirt, the light so bright it put creases around her eyes just to look at it. The slender blue gums on the ridge, ancient and watchful. This was the landscape of her childhood and she would never be able to escape its influence. But just as Daniel Miller had brought her to Halcyon, the books that she'd read as a child, lying beneath the ferns at Darling House, had taken her to lands where trees with names like oak and chestnut and elm grew in great, ancient forests, and the soil was moist and the sun was gentle, where there were magical words like "hedgerow" and "conker," and snow kissed the glass of windows in winter, and children went sledding at Christmas and ate "pudding" and "blancmange." And so, she had come to know another landscape, not just intellectually, but viscerally: a landscape of the imagination as real to her as the geographical landscape in which she moved. When she first arrived in England as a twenty-year-old graduate, she had stepped off the plane and known it already. Standing here now, looking across the valley toward the facing hill, Jess could imagine how homesick Isabel must have felt at times. She herself had been thinking about "home" a lot. Home, she'd realized, wasn't a place or a time or a person, though it could be any and all of those things: home was a feeling, a sense of being complete. The opposite of "home" wasn't "away", it was "lonely." When someone said, "I want to go home," what they really meant was that they didn't want to feel lonely anymore.

The house stood high on the peninsula of Vaucluse, three stories tall with a turret on one side. It had been built in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Jess's great-great-great-grandfather arrived in the colony of New South Wales, and had been featured in several glossy books about architecture that her grandmother kept open on the display tables in the library. Inside it was entirely unpredictable: unexpected doorways led to hidden staircases that wound around brick chimneys and allowed a person to arrive in a vastly different part of the house from that which they'd left.

That necklace," he said. Polly looked down to where her silver cat was hanging on the long chain. It needed a polish, she realized. She told him the story about the Victorian rattle, but when she'd finished he said, "I meant the little bird. Where did you find it?" Polly smiled. "Actually," she said, "I really did find it. Today, just before I met Kurt. I spotted it on the ground while I was walking. The sunlight caught on a piece of silver ribbon that must once have been tied to it and drew my eye." He was nodding. "Near the water hole?" She wondered how he knew, and then realized that of course Kurt must have told him where they'd met. "I like to collect things from nature. I'm always on the lookout. It's a hobby; my daughter and I used to beachcomb when she was small... I thought it was a stone at first, or a smooth seedpod. But it wasn't. It was this most perfect little bird. A wren, I think." "A fairy wren. We have a lot of them around here." "A fairy wren," said Polly, liking the name very much. "There was something almost magical about it. It was just lying there, as if it had been waiting for me to find it. I suppose that sounds silly." "Not at all." "I can be a bit of a romantic." "A fine trait. We'd have no books or music or paintings if not for the romantics among us.

He lifted his hands, indicating the garden canopy, the silver-grassed mountain on the other side of the valley, the white-trunked gums. "This is my church. My dad used to talk about places overseas, like St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the Notre-Dame in Paris---places he'd read about in books and wanted to see. But I always felt most connected when I was outside; not just surrounded by nature, but intrinsic to it, a tiny part of a system much larger than I was. Reverence. Grace. Meaning. Purpose. I feel those things when I'm working. Nature is my cathedral.

But Isabel was like no one Nora had met before. She was beautiful, of course---the otherworldly clarity of her English skin!---and possessed of the sort of poise Nora could only dream about. Beyond that, she was magnetic. Try as Nora might, she couldn't resist her brother's new wife. First, there was her voice when she spoke, that crisp accent and authoritative diction that made Miss Perry (strictest in a long line of governesses) seem like a drover's wife by comparison; next, there was her laugh, which rose like bubbles in a glass of champagne. And then there were her stories. True tales of adventure and daring, rivaling anything Nora had read in her Girls' Crystal Annuals: during the Blitz, Isabel had handled secret papers in Whitehall and later worked in some sort of capacity that she wasn't able to speak of at length (at least not then and there). Even more excitingly, she was an orphan---a real one, just like a girl in a book, whose parents had died in tragic circumstances when she was only young, casting her out of the nest and into a childhood of boarding schools and midnight feasts and hockey sticks and daring japes. Nora couldn't think of anything more romantic.

Stress can make even the most loving mother lose control.

Tolkien THE HOBBIT LEAF BY NIGGLE ON FAIRY-STORIES FARMER GILES OF HAM THE HOMECOMING OF BEORHTNOTH THE LORD OF THE RINGS THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL THE ROAD GOES EVER ON (WITH DONALD SWANN) SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR WORKS PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, PEARL AND SIR ORFEO* THE FATHER CHRISTMAS LETTERS THE SILMARILLION* PICTURES BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN* UNFINISHED TALES* THE LETTERS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN* FINN AND HENGEST MR BLISS THE MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS & OTHER ESSAYS* ROVERANDOM THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN* THE LEGEND OF SIGURD AND GUDRÚN* THE FALL OF ARTHUR* BEOWULF: A TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY* THE STORY OF KULLERVO THE LAY OF AOTROU & ITROUN BEREN AND LÚTHIEN* THE FALL OF GONDOLIN* THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH – BY CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN ​I THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE ​II THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART TWO ​III THE LAYS OF BELERIAND ​IV THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH ​V THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS ​VI THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW ​VII THE TREASON OF ISENGARD VIII THE WAR OF THE RING ​IX SAURON DEFEATED ​X MORGOTH’S RING ​XI THE WAR OF THE JEWELS ​XI THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH

This was the magic of books, the curious alchemy that allowed a human mind to turn black ink on white pages into a whole other world.

To be alive is to get lost in the books, poetry, and the smell of pressed memories for ultimately, they bring us to us. It then becomes a beautiful homecoming.

Reading shapes a person. The landscape of books is more real, in some ways, than the one outside the window.

charged with a technique I was calling Plasma Edge, which created a cutting line on my weapons that was eerily reminiscent of a lightsaber.

the God of Scripture who over and over again shows love for us imperfect creatures, who does not demand that we be good or virtuous before we can be loved. When we stray from God, it is not God’s pleasure to punish us. It is God’s pleasure to welcome us back, and then throw a party in celebration of our homecoming.

It is surely more likely that the composer of the Odyssey had the end of the Iliad especially in mind, whether or not both poems are by the same author. It is, however, tempting to go a step further, and to see the similarities as due to the fact that when Homer gave the end of the Iliad the form it has, the Odyssey was already taking shape in his mind: i.e. not only is a single poet the composer of both, but their composition actually overlapped to some extent. Thus we find that not only does the Iliad itself form a great and complex ring-structure, whose end echoes and resolves the themes of its beginning, but it is also inseparably linked or dovetailed thematically with the Odyssey, as if the two works could really almost be regarded as one great epic continuum, stretching from the Wrath of Akhilleus to the safe homecoming and triumph of the last of the heroes, Odysseus.

At some point, you either need to face it or let it go. Holding onto anger does nothing for your soul.

Fear does that to a person. Blinds them to what is good for them and convinces them they want something different.

The thought that there would be no other person who could complete you like they did. There was this soul completing feeling that you couldn’t get anywhere else. When you found your soulmate, that was it. All the questions in life were answered. You were no longer alone but with someone who cared for you as much as you did them.

The book follows the classic structure of a fable, which is always the same, in Greek myths as in the popular legends of every era. Initiation, period of great trials, homecoming, final challenge, death and apotheosis.

No, good ol’ Blake was beyond reproach in Charlene’s book. They’d gone to homecoming together and been inseparable ever since . . . well, until today. Not that Gray would do anything bad to him either way. Both she and Charlene had taken

He pressed the herb to his nose. Thyme. He loved the name and he loved the smell. He looked out the window at the illusion of deep woods. His face too was out there, hung on a tree and returning his gaze. He drew close to the glass to lose the mirror effect. Outside, the forest panted its beefy halitus; the soil held the breaths of gloom in its dampness. Fifteen thousand years ago a glacier had sliced through this park he was living in, bringing with it the nutrients from all its travels. Fifteen thousand years ago human beings were the fable that frightened the dark woods.

You remember Vietnam veterans being spat upon, incidents that were called an “urban myth” by liberals, until Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene asked in his newspaper column if any Vietnam veterans were personally spat upon when they returned to the United States. He received more than a thousand replies, sixty of which are included in his book Homecoming.51

One of the more useful things I learned as a midshipman at Maine Maritime Academy were the names of the seven masts of a seven masted schooner. When I mentioned to the 600 people in attendance at a Homecoming event that my degree was a BS in Marlinspike Seamanship no one laughed, leaving me in the embarrassing position of having to explain that actually I had a Bachelor of Marine Science degree. Later looking into a mirror I convinced myself that I really didn’t look old enough to have lived in an era when wooden ships were sailed by iron men. What I remembered was that we were wooden men sailing on iron ships that were actually made of steel, however I can remember schooners sailing along the coast of New England and I do remember the seven names of a seven masted schooner. In actual fact only one seven masted schooner was ever built and she was the she a 475 foot, steel hulled wind driven collier/tanker named the Thomas W. Lawson, named after a Boston millionaire, stock-broker, book author, and President of the Boston Bay State Gas Co. Launched in 1902 she held the distinction of being the largest pure sail ship ever built. Originally the names of the masts were the foremast, mainmast, mizzenmast, spanker, jigger, driver, and pusher. Later the spanker became the kicker and the spanker moved to next to last place, with the pusher becoming the after mast. Depending on whom you talked to, the names and their order drifted around and a lot of different naming systems were formed. Some systems used numbers and others the days of the week, however there are very few, if any of the iron men left to dispute what the masts were called. The Thomas W. Lawson had two steam winches and smaller electrically driven winches, to raise and lower her huge sails. The electricity was provided by a generator, driven by what was termed a donkey engine. On November 20, 1907 the large 475 foot schooner sailed for England. Experiencing stormy weather she passed inside of the Bishop Rock lighthouse and attempted to anchor. That night both anchor chains broke, causing the ship to smash against Shag Rock near Annet. The schooner, pounded by heavy seas capsized and sank. Of the 19 souls aboard Captain George W. Dow and the ships engineer Edward L. Rowe were the only survivors. Everyone else, including the pilot, drown and were buried in a mass grave in St Agnes cemetery.

Excuse me while I jot that down in my Big Blue Book of Who Gives a Shit?

Laszlo Bock, Work Rules (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2015) David Brooks, The Social Animal (New York: Random House, 2011) Arie de Geus, The Living Company (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002) Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Perseverance and Passion (New York: Scribner, 2016) Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (New York: Random House, 2012) Amy Edmondson, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 2012) Adam Grant, Give and Take (New York: Viking, 2013) Richard Hackman, Leading Teams (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002) Chip and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (New York: Broadway Books, 2010) Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (New York: HarperCollins, 2016) James Kerr, Legacy (London: Constable & Robinson, 2013) Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002) Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York: Portfolio, 2015). Mark Pagel, Wired for Culture (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012) Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009) Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013) Edgar H. Schein, Helping (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009) Edgar H. Schein, Humble Inquiry (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013) Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline (New York: Doubleday Business, 1990) Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without the written and signed permission of the author. All trademarked names are the property of their owner and are acknowledged by the proper use of capitalization throughout. OTHER ‘Game on Boys’ BOOKS Available on Amazon as eBooks or print books Game on Boys 4 can be read separately or part of a series FREE ebook Game on Boys 1:The PlayStation Playoffs(8-12) Game on Boys 2 : Minecraft Madness (8-12) Game on Boys 3 : NO Girls Allowed Game on Boys 5 : House of Horrors Game on Boys 6 : Galactic Zombie Other books by Kate Cullen FREE Diary Of a Wickedly Cool Witch : Bullies and Baddies(8-13) Boyfriend Stealer : Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 2 (8-13) Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 3 : Perfect Ten (8-13) Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 4 : Witch School for Misfits Lucy goes to the Halloween Party (Early readers) Lucy the Easter Dog (Early readers) Lucy's Merry Christmas Sammy McGann and the Secret Soup People (5-10) Follow KATE on TWITTER at Kate Cullen @ katekate5555 Or email gameonboysseries@gmail.com to receive email updates. (Copy and paste) Or visit her website for new books and giveaways Kate Cullen author website Contents 1. Wow 2. BYODD 3. Secrets 4. News 5. Brats 6. Santa 7. Wishing 8. Blocky 9. Monsters 10. Wolverine 11. Creepy. 12. Arachnophobia 13. Fartblaster 14. Superhero 15. Enderman 16. Teleporting 17. Lost 18. Potions 19. Scared 20. Spells 21. Fireworks 22. Homecoming 1. WOW You know how awesome Christmas is, and birthdays are sick as, Easter is just a big fat chocolate splurge, and even Thanksgiving is like pig-out insanity. Weekends are kinda cool too, but holidays are totally far out man. And when a new PS game comes out and they have a midnight release extravaganza at the game store, it’s like crazy time, coolness overload. All these things are the main reason I exist on this earth. Without all this stuff, life would just SUCK big time. But nothing, I repeat NOTHING comes close to the Christmas I just had. WOW! I repeat WOW! Where do I even start? This Christmas was a like a dream come true. Actually it was sort of like a nightmare too, if that makes any sense. A dream and a nightmare mixed up into one. Totally far out man. Totally gobsmacking, totally awesome, but totally freaking scary. So you’re probably thinking like I won a million bucks or something and then got mugged, or the owner of Sony PlayStation company sent me 1000 free PS games, and then the house got robbed at gunpoint. Or even better, the owner made me the new boss of the Sony PlayStation company. Yeah right! Like that will ever happen! In my dreams!! Although, after what happened, I’m thinking that absolutely anything is possible. 2. BYODD The last day at school before Christmas break was awesome. We had a BYOD day in the afternoon. The first part of the day we had to do all the boring Christmassy stuff like making soppy cards for our families, coloring pictures of Santa and doing boring word searches looking for words like (DER) ‘Santa, Christmas, present, jingle, stocking’. Like BORING. Capital ‘B’ Boring. Why can’t Christmas word finds have proper Christmas words like, console, iPhone 6, PlayStation games, Star wars, BMX, Nerf Modulous Blaster, Thunderblast, Star Wars darth vader vehicle, lego Star Wars Death star?

Education should not be about children conforming to the system's way of teaching. Instead, it should be about the system expanding to the children's way of learning.

My belief is that recovery from childhood abandonment, neglect, and abuse is a process, not an event. Reading this book and doing the exercises will not make all your problems disappear overnight. But I guarantee that you’ll discover a delightful little person within yourself. You will be able to listen to that child’s anger and sadness and to celebrate life with your inner child in a more joyous, creative, and playful way.

✨ Love Nugget ✨

Why carry the weight of the world on your shoulder when instead you can rest it in the Light of your heart. The effect of this cause is profound.

When you are steadfast focused on the absolute Truth, therein will be your salvation.

Light and sound are soulmates and their offspring is you.

Liberation is not about win or lose. It is about when you choose.

The Divine pervades all that you see, hear, touch and experience. Being in this constant company of an all-pervasive Love, why should you worry or fear.

The Divine pervades all that you see, hear, touch and experience. Being in this constant company of an all-pervasive Love, why should you worry or fear?

YahNahVah is a Language that can only be heard and understood by those who choose to listen for it inwardly.

You are greater than any book; for the Infinite Wisdom of Creator lives within YOU.

Liberation is not about win or lose. It's about when you choose.

Charlene pulled back. “Oh, no, don’t do anything to Blake.” No, good ol’ Blake was beyond reproach in Charlene’s book. They’d gone to homecoming together and been inseparable ever since . . . well, until today. Not that Gray would do anything bad to him either way. Both she and Charlene had taken the Vow of Honor at age twelve, and that meant absolutely no black magic. Gray

At the foot of the mountain he found another hemlock, almost as pretty as the first. He chopped it down and lifted it on his shoulder. Just at that moment, unwarmed by any sunset light, the gray day darkened into night. He walked in darkness now, for the resin torch had burnt out. He did not mind. The lights of home were within his sight.

I don’t know that either,” replied Olivia. “I’m feelen reckless. Liven each day as it comes. Let tomorrow take care of itself.” Olivia tried to make her voice sound convincingly free of care, but she didn’t succeed. She and Clay-Boy both knew that the money Clay had left with her last week for food had dwindled to less than three dollars.

Standing on the back porch was Charlie Sneed, Clay’s friend and companion in hunting and fishing, woodcutting, drinking and poker-playing. Before the Depression he had worked beside Clay in the machine shop. Since the mill had closed he had become a backwoods Robin Hood, poaching game, some of which he sold in Charlottesville for cash money; the rest he gave to friends or families he knew to be in special need.

There’s no use arguing that modern society isn’t a kind of paradise. The vast majority of us don’t, personally, have to grow or kill our own food, build our own dwellings, or defend ourselves from wild animals and enemies. In one day we can travel a thousand miles by pushing our foot down on a gas pedal or around the world by booking a seat on an airplane. When we are in pain we have narcotics that dull it out of existence, and when we are depressed we have pills that change the chemistry of our brains. We understand an enormous amount about the universe, from subatomic particles to our own bodies to galaxy clusters, and we use that knowledge to make life even better and easier for ourselves. The poorest people in modern society enjoy a level of physical comfort that was unimaginable a thousand years ago, and the wealthiest people literally live the way gods were imagined to have. And yet. There are many costs to modern society, starting with its toll on the global ecosystem and working one’s way down to its toll on the human psyche, but the most dangerous loss may be to community. If the human race is under threat in some way that we don’t yet understand, it will probably be at a community level that we either solve the problem or fail to. If the future of the planet depends on, say, rationing water, communities of neighbors will be able to enforce new rules far more effectively than even local government. It’s how we evolved to exist, and it obviously works.

With my wonder child as a guide, I can now see that my whole life is perfect. My dysfunctional family, my alcoholic dad and co-dependent mom, my poverty—all were perfect. They were exactly what I needed to experience in order to do the work I am now doing. Without my childhood I would never have done a TV series on dysfunctional families or written books on shame and shame-based families. And certainly I wouldn’t be writing this book on homecoming, which calls you and me to reclaim and champion our wounded inner kids.

No, good ol’ Blake was beyond reproach in Charlene’s book. They’d gone to homecoming together and been inseparable ever since . . . well, until today. Not that Gray would do anything bad to him either way. Both she and Charlene had taken the Vow of Honor at age twelve, and that meant absolutely no black magic. Gray lifted her hands in surrender. “Fine, I won’t make a Blake Foster voodoo doll when I get home.” Charlene’s eyes widened. “But don’t blame me if his car gets keyed.” “Lee, don’t touch Blake’s truck, either.” “Why not?” “When we get back together I don’t want to see a scratch on Blake or his truck.” “Oh, so now you’re getting back together?” “Blake just needs to realize the error of his ways.” Charlene flipped a long strands of blond hair over her shoulder and smiled right before turning away. “Char . . .” Gray said in a warning voice.

much lighter in make than was found in this area.  “Are these yours?”  He asked as he held them out to Thomaline. “Yes.  Thank you.  They were made for me a long time ago.”  She said as she accepted them.  She replaced the dagger in the sheath on her left side, but it took her two tries to get the sword back into the scabbard and then more difficulty as she pulled the harness ring to bring the sword up on her back.

If Clay-Boy had any wish in life it was that his mother would stop reminding him that he was the oldest. It took all the fun out of things to be constantly reminded that he was a combination policeman, referee, guardian and nursemaid to his younger brothers and sisters. “I’m like some old mother duck,

That red bird is goen to freeze tonight,” observed Luke. Luke was ten, the handsome one with hair almost the same shade as the red bird in the crab-apple tree. “He won’t freeze,” said Olivia. “A red bird has got the knack of surviven winter. He knows it too. Otherwise he’d of headed South with the wrens and the goldfinches and the bluebirds back when the leaves started to turn.

Groans of despair flooded the room. The disappointment in the children’s faces was almost too great for Olivia to bear, but she stood her ground, knowing how greatly Clay disapproved of accepting any handout. “Aw shoot, ’Livy,” scolded her mother. “What wrong can it be in ’em getten a toy or an apple or a candy bar?” “Clay feels real strong about it. He won’t even allow me to take that WPA food the government’s handen out.

The grinding poverty of the Depression years had already stamped the older faces with a gaunt gray pallor, but the prospect of a gift, of some slight change from the ordinary, the elusive Christmas Spirit, had animated thin faces and brought hope to defeated eyes. Each newcomer joined the group silently, without any greeting to his neighbor. They were proud and independent people. Accepting any kind of outside help went against their grain, but they had put aside their pride this night so that their children might receive some token of Christmas which they themselves were unable to provide.

The city lady appeared for a moment as if she were about to back away; but then she looked out into the crowd where she saw one person indicate his own head with his index finger then slowly revolve the finger. The city lady herself was possessed of physical abnormality. She was double-jointed, and in reply to Birdshot’s traveling pellets, she stuck out her hand and began rapidly revolving her thumb a full three hundred and sixty degrees. In his fascination Birdshot forgot to continue his part of the performance, but continued to stare until the lady brought her own performance to an end, but there in the wet snow, in the cold December night, Birdshot Sprouse experienced a unique kind of communication which he had never felt before with another human being. He had reached out to touch someone and that someone had not turned away, but had reached back.

OLIVIA’S APPLESAUCE CAKE 1 cup of butter 1 cup sugar 2 cups applesauce 2 cups light raisins 1 cup chopped walnuts 1 teaspoon baking soda 3½ cups flour (sifted) 2 eggs 1 teaspoon cinnamon 2 teaspoons cloves 2 teaspoons nutmeg Pinch of salt Sift together: Flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Take ½ cup of flour mixture and stir into the nuts and raisins. Set both aside. Cream butter until whipped soft. Add sugar a little at a time until mixture is smooth. Beat in eggs vigorously. Alternately stir in flour mixture and applesauce. When all mixed together add nuts and raisins and mix well. Pour batter into a well-greased cake mold. Bake in preheated oven at 350° for one hour. Cool ten minutes, then turn out on cake rack. Frost with Whiskey Frosting when cake is

JANE’S WHISKEY FROSTING ¼ cup butter 1 tablespoon cream 2 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons whiskey (bourbon) Pinch of salt Cream butter, add sugar and salt, then cream and whiskey. Whip until smooth. Frost cake. Decorate with a sprig of holly.

Children are such fragile things, she thought. Arrows shot from her body, gone now beyond any calling back. She catalogued them in her mind. Clay-Boy, so smart and ambitious. Becky, so independent, so capable and vulnerable. Shirley, so beautiful and so maternal. Matt, so self-reliant and full of love and promise. John, with the talent born in his hands to play music on a piano. Mark, all business one minute and wanting a hug in the next. Luke, the handsome wild one with his eye already on some far horizon, and Pattie-Cake, too spoiled to turn her hand for herself, too pretty and sweet to spank. What will become of them all, God only knows. Life be good to them. God, help us all.

When this was done, he placed the filled jars in the refrigerator, then turned to join his grandparents and his brothers and sisters, who were in the living room listening to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio.

The matter with her is she’s thirteen years old,” answered Clay-Boy. “She’ll live through it,” smiled Olivia. “I just hope the rest of us do.