J.J. Brown Quotes & Sayings

I love opera. Si. But I am old. No passion in my life, you know? I work, I walk slowly now through my years ... but opera! I see, I hear that passion, Eva. Is like the passion of youth. And I live again. I feel something. — J.J. Brown

Science is a hammer for change. — J.J. Brown

She listens to the delicate fluttering of sparrows' wings, tiny messengers. The sound reminds her of life - struggling, beating, rising, flying, and now dissolving into space. — J.J. Brown

The dream is the exclusive property of the dreamer. — J.J. Brown

The beauty of writing is imagining new endings to a time of darkness, like burning off a morning fog with the heat and clarity of the sun. — J.J. Brown

It's your life, not your death, that defines you. — J.J. Brown

Oma says, when we were put on earth a really long time ago, each person came with a plant to heal all the troubles that come later ... We've got Indian balsam, sage, wild rose. We've got juniper berries and honeysuckle. All of them do something different inside, heal things. — J.J. Brown

So much for land ownership, Henry thinks; it's a modern myth. You can buy and sell rights to use the land; you can't actually own it. He tries to remember who said, the land doesn't belong to you, you belong to the land; the author was certainly Native American, but he can't pin down the source. — J.J. Brown

She imagined that each of them saw the story in a different light based on their own experience, or lack of it. That, then, was the beauty of opera to her. Giving the gift of a performance, of song that was transformed after it left her mouth into a different story for each member of the audience as it entered their thoughts, each night, dependent only on their unique and hidden inner needs. — J.J. Brown

I hear the trees whispering sometimes. They don't talk to everyone. Or maybe they do, but not everyone listens. Do you hear them? — J.J. Brown

Eva walked along the wall that held all of Michael's books. Shelves of science texts - physics, astronomy, a full set of Darwin's writings, new works in biomedical genetics - these were at the bottom, and books on philosophy and religion at the top. A row of poetry books caught her eye. Rumi, Whitman, Neruda - impossible to comprehend what he might be looking for in the poets' works he collected. Love possibly, but not love the way she understood it. She couldn't wait until she would no longer have to study, but Michael - he loved to study even when he wasn't a student. — J.J. Brown

She pulls on her heavy boots and carries the water bucket past the rose bushes, past the herb garden, and back to the barn behind the house. Her steps kick up the scents of herbs: thyme, mint, and lemon balm. The plants send up new stems each year from the roots that survived the winter and grew up again along the path. The perfumed walk is a mystical part of her world. Walking here is her favorite part of mornings. Sometimes, this is the highlight of her day. — J.J. Brown

Mother took the pie out of the oven and it hissed fragrant apple, maple, cinnamon steam through the knife cuts in the top crust. She was making her world beautiful. She was making her world delicious. It could be done, and if anyone could do it, she could. — J.J. Brown

For people with patience, time with a dog is a little slice of heaven. — J.J. Brown

Daniel's desk by the window is piled high with his drawings. The artwork is everything. He thinks of himself as the act of drawing. His body of work is his life, it is his continuity. The drawings show outwardly that inner place where he is still alive, a thread to connect him with the world. — J.J. Brown

The ancient trees are the deep earth's language for speaking to the universe. The earth communicates through trees to the animals and to the birds living above - and to the very heavens. The trees draw the earth's water up from the ground. Then breathing, they return it to the air for the clouds and the blessed rain that falls to begin the cycle anew. She thinks of the thin layer of living things as a fragile space between earth's molten rock core and the frozen outer universe of stars. The thin layer is like her own life here - precious, finite — J.J. Brown

He remembers a verse from the mystic poet, Rumi, Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. — J.J. Brown

Not everyone needs more money, she says. I don't. My family doesn't. You might not realize it, but we have our riches here, and we have our peace. We have the forest, the wildflowers. They're not weighted the same way your treasures are, not bought and sold. So you don't recognize the value in them. — J.J. Brown

We're close to where the nature preserve starts now, Charlotte says to Henry. The magic begins here. Can you feel it? She suspects he probably can't. She walks here daily, looking for something, peace mostly. The forest gives her more than she comes looking for, every time. — J.J. Brown

The dream world is the last wilderness, vast and unknowable. — J.J. Brown

Older people are always searching for treasure, but she thinks they look in the wrong places. If they knew about her herb garden, the roses in bloom, and Maman's horse, Beth is certain people would value all these things. They would love them like she does when she sits behind her house, breathing, dreaming. — J.J. Brown