need(ful things

  

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An Athens marketplace amazed Diogenes with “How many things there are in the world of which Diogenes hath no need!” Lou had long since cut out fashion and all radio but the Red Sox. In the past few years she had let go her ties to people she did not like, to ironing, to dining out in town, and to buying things not necessary and that themselves needed care. She ignored whatever did not interest her. 

With those blows she opened her days like a pinata. A hundred freedoms fell on her. She hitched free years to her lifespan like a kite tail. Everyone envied her the time she had, not noticing that they had equal time.

—Annie Dillard

The Maytrees

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We can live any way we want. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse.

—Annie Dillard

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Humanity i love you because you are perpetually putting the secret of life in your pants and forgetting it’s there and sitting down on it.


—E.E. Cummings

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