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The heart’s a deep well

Squander it all! Hold nothing back. The heart’s a deep well. And when it’s empty, It will fill again. These are words from How Beautiful the Beloved by Gregory Orr.  One of the best kinds of friends are friends who give you a book—a book you never would have read if it wasn’t a gift. […]

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Happy Thanksgiving!

We’re wishing you a day filled with love and laughter. Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate with friends and family. To eat, drink and be merry. Be thankful! “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?” Erma Bombeck once said. –Joy

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Grateful for everything

I’m grateful for my friends, my family, for all of my blessings. “What if today, we were just grateful for everything?” Charlie Brown once said. –Joy

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I am thankful

What am I thankful for? I am thankful for many things—most of all, my family and my friends. I am thankful for people in my family who are friends and family, and I also am thankful for friends who have become important members of my family of friends! “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving […]

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What we talk about

What do you talk about? “The best things can’t be told because they transcend thought,” Joseph Campbell once said. “The second best are misunderstood, because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can’t be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.”

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The emotions of morons?

Fredrik Backman, the Swedish author of The Winners, says that he writes about emotions. “I’m interested only in emotions—the things that people feel that make them act like morons.” Backman spoke at an Arts & Letters Live presentation in Dallas on October 3, 2022.

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Women are people, too

Someone asked Fredrik Backman, the Swedish author of The Winners, how he does such a good job creating women characters. “I write with the assumption that they’re people, too,” Backman told the audience at an Arts & Letters Live presentation on October 3, 2022. Later, he added, “I don’t understand women. I don’t understand humans. […]

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Love is a good thing

Many years ago, John Steinbeck wrote a letter to his 14-year-old son, who had fallen in love, reported The Dallas Morning News on October 6, 2022. Now, that letter will be auctioned. It is a lovely letter because the famous writer took his son’s feelings seriously. Steinbeck wrote: “If you are in love—that is a […]

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We’re traveling!

We have three trips planned in October. They aren’t trips to Europe or adventures on a cruise, but we are escaping Dallas—which we haven’t done very often since the pandemic began. During October, we will be in Eureka Springs in a cabin with our children and their spouses—in Georgetown, near Austin, visiting with friends—and in […]

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Gossip!?

Sometimes, when you talk about people, it’s gossip. Sometimes, it’s not gossip, says author Elizabeth Strout. “I have never found anything in this world as interesting as people. I like to talk about them. I like to write about them.” I heard Elizabeth Strout speak at Arts & Letters Live at the Dallas Museum of […]

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