Today I smiled, and it felt good. It feels like it's been a long while since my smile went away, but today I found it again, so today's thoughts are all about smiles. :)
- A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you're at home. ~Author Unknown
- If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it. ~Andy Rooney
- Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. ~Mother Teresa
- A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. ~Washington Irving
Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do - or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so. ~Stanley Crawford
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ~Edith Sitwell
There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout
I have always been drawn to libraries, my friends bookshelves, bookstores. There's nothing more pleasing than finding a new book just off the press by a favorite author or browsing library/bookstore shelves and discovering a new author you've never read before, but whose book intrigues you from the very first page. As far back as I can remember, I've lost myself in the pages of novels; discovering mysteries, fantastic places, and books that bring comfort to my soul. I love sagas that follow a family through days or years of their lives. There are just so many wonderful books that capture the imagination and inspire me. Each year when the new Texas "Bluebonnet" books come out in our school library, I can hardly wait to read them all. I also love reading with my grandsons and watching the joy in their eyes reflecting back to me as a new story unfolds.
It's been almost a year now since my novel Moon Dance was released, and what a delightful joy it was to hold the first copy in my hand. I have received so many wonderful reviews over the past year from friends old and new, which have truly touched my heart. In honor of this I've found a few quotes about books that I really enjoyed. I hope you will, too!
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book. ~Groucho Marx
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. ~William Hazlitt
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. ~Groucho Marx
My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter. ~Thomas Helm
A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. ~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958
You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. ~Paul Sweeney
Lord! when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book. ~Christopher MorleyBlessings,
Susan
Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. ~Victor Hugo
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran
In my distress I came to Jesus, I had no rest, but full of fear. He heard my cry, he made me whole, and he became the keeper of my soul. In love he did draw me, he called me by name, to his voice I did listen, and to him I came. His peace he did give me as I entered his fold, now he reigns in my heart as the keeper of my soul. ~ Nita Owen - 1982
Just a lily in the garden, standing pure and white and clean, Father let my light bloom like it, for my savior I have seen. In his word there are the lilies growing in the field of white, fill me that I may grow to be a reflection of his light. ~ Nita Owen - 1982
Thank you, Mama, for always being a reflection of God's light in my life. I will miss you greatly, but I know you will be the lily in God's garden, and you too may feel as though the bough beneath you is weak, but you know as your spirit sings God's praises, you are carried safely to the promised lands on angels wings.
I love you deeply, Susan
