M.J. Rose

_"As Oedipus learned, the more you run away from what is predetermined the more you run toward it.

No, the sadness will soften, its edges will become less rough. In time missing him will be the way you love him.

Art frees us from our prejudices and gives us the chance to become our best selves, individuals who dare to dream. And even if those dreams aren__ always as pretty as we__ like, or don__ conform, or frighten us, it is our duty to encourage art to flourish. All art. Every kind.

Spend lavishly on creams. Wash your hair with henna at the first sign of gray. Never spend one minute thinking about what you do not have. And most importantly, indulge in everything but love.

There was, for many of us, a great escape in reading about the fantastic and supernatural during wartime. Terrors more terrible than those we were living through gave us an outlet for our anxiety.

They called it the Great War, but that implied worthiness and grandeur, not violence and helplessness and the utter waste and devastation our country, our city, our people endured.

I felt his voice. Fingers rubbing moss. Smoke curling. Wood worn and smoothed over time. His voice had darkness in it that hovered close to the ground, like a mist hanging over a lake deep in a forest at dusk. A bolt of sea-green velvet. A sensation as much as a series of sounds. It reverberated inside me.

The library at home when she was child had been her refuge. She gravitated to it. When she was anxious, just taking a book of a shelf calmed her. Opening the cover, feeling the paper__ smoothness, smelling the sheets, the leather, even sometimes the ink, centered her.

Jersey cows,_ Eva explained after Jac complimented the luxurious taste. __he butter and cream here are better than anywhere in the world.___ot that we__e prejudiced,_ Theo teased.

It was a fitting animal for a priest. Cats guard the secrets of the otherworld and are liaisons with mystic realms. Protectors of esoteric knowledge, cats can open the gates through which a priest can see the future and gain insight.

To be a decent writer you must have both empathy and imagination. While these attributes aid your art, they can plague your soul. You don__ simply suffer your own sadness, experience your own longing and worry about your own wife and children, you are burdened with experiencing the emotional states of multitudes of others you don__ know.

...men are monsters all, and something in them wants to force others to see the world the same way they see it.

There is no glory in honesty if it is destructive. And no shame in dishonesty if its goal is to offer grace.