Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Theater

“People don’t understand that when you come into any theatrical experience, you’ve got to come locked and loaded, that you’re a part of the experience, too. You can’t come with your arms crossed. Be open to it.”-Viola Davis

“All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That’s what makes theatre live. That’s why it persists.”-Stephen Sondheim

“In our own, theatre can be the place where we come together, reaching with and through stories, to who we are and to who we can be.”-Juliet Stevenson

“Youth theatre isn’t just about a precocious child that wants to sing and dance in front of people. It’s for everyone; it’s about a community, it’s about being supported by your peer group. You learn skills – not just acting but all the other sides – working in the TV, film, and theatre industry.”-Sam Heughan

“I remember a conversation with my parents about who the people on the TV were, and learning they were actors and they acted out this story and just thinking that was the most fantastic notion, and that’s what I want to do.”-David Tennant

Life Posts · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Grief

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.”
― Brian Jacques, Taggerung

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life.”
― Maria V. Snyder, Storm Glass

“She heard him mutter, ‘Can you take away this grief?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

Simple Sundays · Uncategorized

Simple Sunday- Rainy days

“You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.”-Denzel Washington

“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”-Dave Barry

“Nothing’s more comforting than the sound of rain when you’re not in it.”
― Erika Krouse, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation

“…I don’t just wish you rain, Beloved – I wish you the beauty of storms…”― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.”-Amelia Barr

“All morning it has been raining.
In the language of the garden, this is happiness.”― Mary Oliver

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Stories

“I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“Libraries are places where the damaged go to find friends”
― Tamora Pierce

“I never feel lonely if I’ve got a book – they’re like old friends. Even if you’re not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. And they’re part of your history. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.” Emilia Fox

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming of themselves like grass.’-Eudora Welty

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Empathy

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.”-Benjamin Disraeli

‘Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.”-Neil Gaiman

“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.”-Malorie Blackman

“Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.”-Barbara Kingsolver

Book Dragon · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Book Memes (With Editorial Comments)

There’s a special place in the bad place for the second kind… right next to people who talk at the theater.

*Not me, shuffling new books in with the old books…

I’m looking at you, Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

I have more of a “not enough bookshelves” issue…

Book Dragon · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Nerds Unite!

“Nerds are far more interesting humans in later life.”-Alyson Hannigan

“In society at large, nerds are law-abiding, caring, fundamentally good folk who keep the wheels of civilization grinding.”-Alexandra Petri

“I want to be the poster girl for engineers and computer nerds.”-Alessandra Torresani

“Evanescence fans aren’t the popular kids in school. They aren’t the cheerleaders. It’s the art kids and the nerds and the kids who grow up to be the most interesting creative people.”-Amy Lee

“No longer is a geek identifiable by a pale complexion, black-rimmed glasses, a bowling shirt that says ‘Nerd World Order.’ No, geeks are everywhere. And they’re cool!”-Faith Salie

“Geeks are people who love something so much that all the details matter.”-Marissa Mayer

Book Dragon · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Favorite Reading Challenge Quotes 2023

“Sometimes a family was a mischievous magical boss, her magical rival turned friend, a magical girl who used to be a babysitter and now was like an older sister, and the person you didn’t understand in the beginning but liked so much now. And sometimes it was arguments and sometimes it was hugs and sometimes it was banding together to fight a morally corrupt government body and sometimes it was just existing in the same space together as friends. But whatever this family was right now, whatever it was going to be, and however it would turn out, it was mine. And I knew that I belonged.”― F.T. Lukens, Spell Bound

“Once I had him in the book club, I’d seduce him the only way I knew how. Through books.”― Juliette Cross, Grim and Bear It

“He looked at her like she was both his salvation and his anguish. Like he had been searching for her for a lifetime.”― T. K. Tucker, The Coven of Ruin

“The story of disabled success has never been a story about one solitary disabled person overcoming limitations—despite the fact that’s the narrative we so often read in the media. The narrative trajectory of a disabled person’s life is necessarily webbed. We are often only as strong as our friends and family make us, only as strong as our community, only as strong as the resources and privileges we have.”
― Alice Wong, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

“You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don’t ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”
― T. Kingfisher, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

“It is fascinating to note how clothing so often played a role in resistance, as life-saving warmth, a heart-warming gift, a hiding place or a disguise.”
― Lucy Adlington, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Goals

“I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.”-Venus Williams

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”-Zig Ziglar

“Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.”-Viktor E. Frankl

“My life has always been about making certain I accrue the skills necessary to make my ambitions real.”-Stacey Abrams

“Pursuit of perfection is futile. Instead, I prioritize and often realize goals or tasks I’ve been aiming for just aren’t that important.”-Aisha Tyler

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Experience

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”- Douglas Adams

“Some days are just bad days, that’s all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is!”- Dita Von Teese

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”-Oscar Wilde

“Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings. I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, and compassion. We are all in this life together.”-Linda Thompson

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'”-Eleanor Roosevelt

“Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realize how important it is to use the time I have.”-Viggo Mortensen