Geneva Zane
- Stringbean and the Grace of Dog
She wanted to show her the treasures on the windowsill: the dented harmonica, the pale blue shard of sea glass, the dented can of soda pop that had grown faded and sticky from years of sitting in the sun. She wanted to tell her secrets, to bring her somewhere silent and say something she had never said out loud.
Geneva Zane
- Stringbean and the Grace of Dog
What is there in this world for you, Stringbean, once your youth has dried up? What else can you do, when you can no longer run and climb and eat the sun that hangs from low-hanging branches? Will you work in the plasticine factory? Die in the mines? What is there for a girl like you, wild, unconquerable Stringbean? "I want to be an astronaut," she answered, with childlike sullenness.
E. B. White
- "A Report in January" from Here is New York
I felt a kinship with Miss Mitchell and comforted myself with the pleasing thought that just to live in New England in winter is a full-time job; you don't have to "do" anything. The idle pursuit of making-a-living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.
