Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwartz

It all comes down to the shame associated with being unmarried and pregnant. Amanda comes home to hide her pregnancy, the night of the birth she tires to leave to escape a plan to give the baby to her sister. This results in a tragic accident when her toddler niece chases after her on the ice and her sister chases after her daughter. Sister, Mathilda, drowns. Amanda spins more lies all to hide the fact that the baby is hers. Things become more complicated as the children grow. The two girls meet at school and of course they become best friends. The baby's father moves to the neighborhood as a summer residence and his son eventually becomes friends with both girls. In order to prevent a potential marriage between half-siblings, Amanda finally tells all to her niece Ruth, that she raised as a daughter. Everything works out, although the family never escapes their oddness.

No News At Throat Lake by Lawrence Donegan

It would be easier for everyone if today's opponents came dressed up in the all too familar clothes of the conqueror.

There are four types of clients; those who know who you are but don't know why they need you; those who don't know who you are but know why they need you; those who know who you are and know why they need you; those who don't know who you are and don't know why they need you.

Seventy-five percent of Irelands road signs have been stolen and now adorn the walls of Irish themed pubs in California.

For a while life was seamless conversation with gray haired men in black suits and clerical collars telling dull stories about how they spent their lives doing starving Africans a favor by introducing them to the word of the Lord. As if that would fill their bellies.

Can't stand around here all day admiring the view. There's work to do.

The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Telling Bell not to flaunt those curves would have been like asking the persecuted fat kid not to use his recently discovered mutant abilities.

They can't do what they want to do or be who they should be. I might have no one in the world but at least I'm free.

Success, after all, loves a witness; but failure can't exist withoutone.

Nothing more exhilarating than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

Niggers who messed with Him had a habit of ending up with a bad case of the deads.

Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Bean

This is a memoir about a Sierra Leone boy who, at the age of 13, joined the army to fight against the RUF. Unfortunately, the army turned out to be as crazy and horrific as the RUF squads. He was removed by Unicef and rehabilitated. He made it to the US by representing his country in the Children UN. He was adopted by an American woman he met through that organization. An amazing chronicle of the inhuman events he lived. Similar to the genocidal accounts told in "Last King Of Scotland" and "Hotel Rwanda." I still find it inconceivable that the world lets this happen.

The Beach by Alex Garland

"Better the devil you know" is a cliche I now despise. Hidden in the bushes, shivering with fright, I learned that if the devil you know is the guard of a drug plantation then all other devils pale in comparison.

Maybe to have a memory you need time for reflection, however brief, just to let the memory find a place to settle.

She had that American habit of frequently using one's name. It had the strange effect of being both disarmingly familiar and unnaturally forced.

On that trip I learned something very important. Escape through travel works.

When in Rom, do as the Romans. in the travelers ten commandments, that's number one. You don't march into a Hindu temp and start saying "why are you worshipping a cow?" You look around, take on board, adjust, accept.

Isn't there a saying that the only thing more dangerous than a man with a gun is a nervous man with a gun? If there isn't, there should be.

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

Income, that is the thing, I wish an income that will keep flowing into my purse whether I sit upon the wall or travel to far lands.

In those things which we exerted our best energies, we succeeded.

A part of all you earn is yours to keep. Never less than ten percent.

Advice is one thing that is freely given away but watch that you take only what is worth having.

1. Living upon less than what you earn.
2. Ask advice from those experienced.
3. Make gold work for you.

Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those that are unprepared.

When I start a task for myself, I complete it. Therefore I am careful not to start difficult and impractical tasks, because I love leisure.

That what each of us calls our necessary expenses will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to to the contrary.

Let thy motto be one hundred percent of appreciated value demanded for each coin spend.

1. Save ten percent of income.
2. Budget expenses not to exceed the other ninty percent.
3. Get your savings to work for you and multiply.
4. Invest safely. Get good advice.
5. Own your home. Make it a profitable investment.
6. Plan for retirement.
7. Continually make yourself wiser.

We must first secure small amounts and learn to protect them before the Gods entrust us with larger.

Preceeding accomplishment must be desire. Thy desires must be strong and definate. For a man to desire 5 pieces of gold is a tangible desire which he can press to fulfullment.

Good luck waits to come to that man who accepts opportunity. Good luck fled from procrastination.

Men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck.

However, there is no chain of disasters that won't come to an end.

I like not idle gold even less than I like too much risk.

Does not a great king fight his enemies in every way he can and with every force he has? Thy debts are thy enemies.

To get out of debt:
1. Pay yourself ten percent
2. Pay your debts twenty percent
3. Live on less than seventy percent

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

The European traveler is accustomed to seeing Asia from above. By that I mean that...the European is generally a good deal better off than the people through whose territory he is passing. So the foreigner tends to ride the high horse of privilege and view the backwoods and their denizens from above. It was otherwise with Herr Harrer.

During the period he rose - from the confidence he inspired rather than because he angled for preferment - from being a destitute and alien vagabond to a well rewarded post as tutor and confidant of the young Dalai Lama.

One of the best characteristics of the Tibetan people is their tolerance of other creeds.

Their monastic theocracy has never sought the conversion of infidels.

It is not lack of work or dire necessity that makes people beggars; not, in most cases bodily infirmity. It is pure laziness.

[The Dalai Lama's] greatest worry was whether his knowledge equaled that of a western school boy of the same age, or whether he would in Europe be classed as a backward Tibetan. Tibetans are anything but dull witted; they are confusing education with intelligence.

[The 13th Dalai Lama] wished to enact new laws but met with bitter opposition from his conservative entourage, who quoted the utterances of the 5th Dalai Lama on the same context. To which the 13th Dalai Lama replied "and who was the 5th former body?" The monks, thereon, prostrated themselves before him for his answer had left them speechless. As an incarnation he was all other Dalai Lama's as well. It entered my mind when I heard this story how lucky Tibet has been never to have a ruler like Nero or Ivan the Terrible. But to a Tibetan such a thought could never occur, for how could an incarnation of the God of Grace by other than good?

Inventing Herself by Elaine Showalter

Women who become feminist icons and leaders tended to define themselves in opposition of their mothers. The ones who really nailed patriarchy weren't one the whole ones with authoritative fathers but the ones with troubled, contradictory mothers.

You aim your feminism less at men than at the picture of the women you don't want to be, the enemy within. 

In their relationships with men, the consciously sought male doubles, or twins, with whom they could form an intellectual, political, or professional partnership. 

What has been forbidden to women is the open admission of the desire for power and control over one's life. 

[Mary Wollstonecraft] was also a good manager and forceful organizer, the sort of person who takes control of people's lives while they offer feeble, passive resistance. In her twenties she tried out many roles in an effort to find a use for her restless intelligence and a outlet for her stifled sexuality and passion. 

I think her preoccupation with herself makes her so compelling, so curiously modern. 

Trapped in the emotions impasse of the exceptional woman who believes she can love only an even more exceptional man. 

The greater her achievements as an emancipated woman the more exacting were her standards and fewer the men who came up to them; and fewer still those who were willing to try. 

Like many women born after her, Wollstonecraft decided that travel would be a good remedy for unrequited love. 

Childbirth, despite medical advances, is a confrontation with mortality for women as war is for men. 

I knew I should never find a being who could keep the key of my character, that there would be none on whom I could always lean, from whom I could always learn, that I should be a pilgrim and sojourner on earth. - Margaret Fuller

Three things seem to me to have taken the place of the old powers that moved society. Science has taken the place of Theology, the Press has taken the place of the Ruler, and Fiction has taken the place which painting and drama occupied in other ages. There are the three living powers of our age whose rule is just beginning. - Olive Schreiner

Monogamy...such an ideal, almost never attainable today needs at least four things: love, respect, intellectual likeness, and command of the necessities of life." - Eleanor Marx

Of course Oscar Wilde's career ended abruptly and tragically as that of the most puritanical or depressed New Women. But he was never, as they were, the prisoner of principle. 

Regarding Charlotte Perkins Gilman: For her, being a transition woman did not mean choosing between love and work, but setting priorities. She survived, no, more, she soared in a world that conspired to deny her flight. She ultimately accomplished what she set out to do: create a loving and sustained intimate relationship with a partner and leave behind a legacy of a lifetime of valuable work. 

Feminist expected to serve their society but they also expected to be having a better time than any women in the world ever had before. They defined their aims as turning away from the intellectualism of life to the life itself. 

Perhaps this makeshift time filler of a job is our life work afterall. - Ruth Benedict

Go! Live the life you covet for your child. 

Margaret Mead had frequently expressed her conviction that one could sustain more than one deeply loving intimacy at a time. 

Growing up was defined as a loss of faith in movements and ideologies and a greater reliance on individual solutions and individual success. 

The woman who wishes to be famous should not marry rather she should attach herself to one more women who will fetch and carry for her in the immemorial style of wives. 

Feminism, for Vera Brittain, meant not a sense of identification with other women but rather a desire to enter the world of men. 

Live, work, act. Don't sit here, and brood and grope among insoluble enigmas. 

You must learn to live without love if you want to live with it. - Mary McCarthy

I think what matters most to me is to live in an age where there is conscious change going on and where I as a woman can play a part in it. I don't need to be a leader. I don't need to be a martyr. I just need to have some chance to go from my space, whatever that meant, into a wider world. - Margaret Fuller

The first exercise of the free woman is to design her own mode of revolt, a mode which will reflect her own independence and originality. 

Men would rather be ruined by one of their own sex than saved by a woman. - Rebecca West

Amelia Earhart was to me an image of everything a woman should be...she is a woman alone. Not a woman handholding in a group or whining about men, a woman alone. - Camille Paglia

Sex is a far darker power than feminism has admitted. 

Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

I am free to live by the standards and ideals and rules I create for myself. 

When things are working, its usually best not to break the rhythm with too many questions. 

Do people who are spending more money have more brakes on their ability to have fun?

Whenever I go, I carry a plastic bottle of bubbles. 

I have learned to compress time through introducing early in conversation intimate details of my life. Then the usual superficialities of initial conversation have been bypassed. 

How I have managed to have so many interesting people experiences? Because I trust. 

I use the word friend to refer to people I connect with. That is what I seek. 

Be sure to take itch cream, plastic bags, and arrange auto bill pay.