Jaanaki

“There was nothing to do but forge ahead, so they mounted horses and wagons, and headed deeper into the mountain, ever leery of the dead soldier’s jacket, of phantom Indians who had taken great pains to hide the place which they sought so hard to find, and of the sporadic eerie rustling of a single tree among many as they descended. Wyn could not help but wonder if some long-dead spirits were trying to warn them away, as they got closer to Whisper Valley…”
― Bobby Underwood, Whisper Valley: A Wild Country Western

“In my junior year I discovered books. . . . Devoured [them] the way other kids did candy or sandwiches, spent days hunched over . . . my spine an oversized question mark.”
― James Sallis, The Long-Legged Fly

“It’s a long time ago that I lost my faith in Mary, a long time since she was the fulcrum of the scheme of salvation I then believed in, alongside Jesus the chief redeemer. But I find that the symbolism of mercy and love which her figure has traditionally expressed has migrated and now shapes secular imagery and events; Catholic worship and moral teaching no longer monopolize it or control its significance.”
― Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary

“There is no one but ourselves to blame for our problems: neither God nor any oppressors.”
― Devdutt Pattanaik, My Gita