1
Everybody dies. It’s no risk to lose your life. You knew it was lost from the beginning.Dan Groat
2
I had always been a boy in this place, and many of the trees and rocks and streams had been old men when I knew them. Some had died. All had changed. I knew that. I had changed the most.Dan Groat
3
The world bein’ so small ain’t always a good thing for those of us who ain’t searchin’ for new and different stuff.Dan Groat
4
One of the worst things I’ve learned about getting older is that there seems to be more change that you don’t like than there was when you were younger and you can’t do nothin’ about it.Dan Groat
5
If the forest has a day of fire and the heat of the flames does not consume a special tree, it will still be changed; charred, but still standing.Dan Groat
6
The gear teeth of his mind, the cogs of the brain’s machinery that propelled his thoughts, were grinding to a halt, too long forced to fight against the friction of agony without the aid of hope, the lubricant for the soul.Dan Groat
7
You can be spiritual all by yourself. Everybody has a soul. But to be religious, it seems like you need other people, and then sometimes it becomes more about the people than the soul.Dan Groat
8
Porches could be cleaned with a broom in a few minutes, but the soul could not be swept. It had to be shaken. And shaking the loess from a soul took a lifetime and more strength than most people had.Dan Groat
9
It remains for you to save one before saving others, to lead one before leading others.Dan Groat
10
Books required no interchanges of thoughts and feelings, no trading of expectations, no traffic of words, no menace of real loss. Reading books required far less energy than reading people; the pages seldom disappointed him and they never died.Dan Groat
11
Reading had always been, through bad, boring, or better times, his best connection to humans.Dan Groat
12
If all you do is think about what you need, you’re no better than an animal in the woods, and no smarter either. To be human, you’ve got to want. It makes you smarter and stronger.Dan Groat
13
Peace, a commodity purchased with friendship and safety and anything comfortable and all things familiar; peace that was a pleasant melody playing through the moments of their day; a chord striking only the notes of security and agreement and understanding and order.Dan Groat
14
Devotion to self is necessary. First, place the mask on yourself and breathe deeply. Then help the others. If you don’t save yourself, they will die.Dan Groat
15
Music is the sound of unspoken thoughts.Dan Groat
16
Does the plain, simple beauty of life get buried under society’s so-called required daily activities or is that just true of me? No, I know I’m not alone in that feeling. We all get caught up in the making and spending of money. I know it’s not just me.Dan Groat
17
Just make sure the day doesn’t pass without sayin’ what’s in your heart. Sometimes you pass up those chances and they’re gone forever.Dan Groat
18
There are struggles you cannot win, but a man can meet his own heart if value is found in loss. Give yourself permission to cry.Dan Groat
19
A silence overtook the odd family in their odd surroundings as loss became the mockery of the moment, and they were caught up in the emotional release that is common in a theater audience after the sudden ending of a tragic movie; the curtain closes and the people are still in their seats, numb and sighing their way back into reality.Dan Groat
20
We are born among relatives. Family is defined by loyalty.Dan Groat
21
I can’t tell you what’s in all of God’s plans, but I do know part of them. He empowers you with reason and will. Those are your strengths. That’s what gives you the chance to be great in his sight. He gave you a mind and codes to live by so you could be in charge of your own actions.Dan Groat
22
Some people get what they want because they grab the power and swing it, and some people don’t.Dan Groat
23
Politics is all about dividing up the power. Washington D.C. likes to talk about spreading the wealth, but never spreading the power.Dan Groat
24
Governments have absolutely no interest in self-reliance. It defeats one of the purposes for their existence. They encourage and thrive on dependency. The more of it they sell, the more necessary they are, and the more power and money they need.Dan Groat
25
The power of our country relies on the character that comes out of each of our homes.Dan Groat
26
The world has a way of dragging down our mood.Dan Groat
27
Seek until there is no hope and then seek further. Seek without end. Trudge on without tiring and without fear and without disheartenment. Trudge on, for it is within you to fight any enemy. It is who you are. It is your past and your present and your future. You will not quit. You cannot quit. Your breath is your courage, and as you breathe, so must you hope or you are already dead.Dan Groat
28
Our bird of hope was being denied the altitude it sought, just free enough to fly dangerously close to the reality of the treetops.Dan Groat
29
Sometimes when the three of us were together on our own, we would have a good time. I was pretty young, but sometimes we would go off in the woods and build forts and fight Indians and I think things were about as close to fine as they ever got right then during those times. In the woods. No parents. No yelling.Dan Groat
30
As you get older, you have to be willing and able to choose your own path for your life. And once you choose it, you walk it with strength. If you meet evil along the way, know that it is supposed to make you afraid, but it’s not supposed to stop you. You walk through the fear and you walk through the evil, and you don’t let either one become your master.Dan Groat
31
A government that thinks it can remedy personal failure is an intrusion in everybody’s life. No law is going to cure a human’s lack of physical or mental effectiveness. I’d rather see democracy promote strength than reward weakness.Dan Groat
32
As an adult I had mastered the art of looking without seeing and listening without hearing and eating without tasting and maybe even existing without living.Dan Groat
33
It’s a funny thing, one day you’re living and the next day you’re not sometimes, whether you have plans or not. Wishes and wants get trumped by the reaper every time. I don’t even know if I would want a warning if it was my time. I think I’d rather be surprised.Dan Groat
34
Being tough today might cause you to be weak in the future.Dan Groat
35
Sometimes, you need to spit stuff out in words to get it better arranged in your head. I figure if you never talk about it, it just picks its own spot and lays there and festers.Dan Groat
36
I wonder if God hears prayers if the only time you make them is when you’re in trouble.Dan Groat
37
The bones of the oak tree that had stood by the spring branch during my youth were scattered about the ground, pieces of the skeleton of a majestic life that had passed while I was off growing up and old.Dan Groat
38
We, the beggar class, have little to lose and our expectations are, at best, modest, and when we suffer, it seems we suffer to the depths, for there is nothing in our lives nor in our souls to buoy our hope. Nothing in the way of the blackness. It sinks to the bottom as the lead weight that is despair. We look forward such a short distance that our spirit is myopic, not to be corrected by any lens within our world. .Dan Groat
39
I am not wise enough to know if there is ever purpose in tragedy, if there is ever virtue in resisting it. If it cannot be overcome, then grief has beaten you, and you are right to say so.Dan Groat
40
What a wonderful sadness to miss the one you have loved forever, it seems, and know that she is waiting at home.Dan Groat
41
Memories with laughter are the best ones to keep.Dan Groat
42
He knew that prejudice was a necessary part of the weak spirit of some men.Dan Groat
43
It’s as close to true freedom as I have come. Not freedom of, but freedom from; freedom from the debris of life that piles up and forces us to dig and dig for our original self, who we were once upon a time, innocent and wonderfully naïve, as authentically pure as a human can be.Dan Groat
44
Time does not heal, but it can liberate. A race run well can never be lost.Dan Groat
45
Hope was always hard to find in the darkness.Dan Groat
46
Doing without will wear on you until temptation is stronger than character, sometimes.Dan Groat
47
Evil won’t leave you alone until you take a stand or until you’re dead.Dan Groat
48
Evil stinks and it doesn’t disappear just because you want it to. You can still smell it with your eyes closed.Dan Groat
49
There is no end to the hatred in men, but there is an end to the hatred in a man. If your hatred is just, and deeds will get you to the end of it, then go and do what must be done.Dan Groat
50
We learn to love when we’re young. If we learn hating better, it has to go somewhere. We can hate ourselves or we can hate somebody else. Most people would rather hate somebody else.Dan Groat
51
I assumed that looking back reminded older guys of what they had shot at and missed, the what-ifs, the good memories, the bad, the people left behind, the people who moved on.Dan Groat
52
I don’t know how a reporter would ever understand a politician. Your job is supposed to be about finding the truth and enlightening people. Right? A politician’s job is about hiding the truth and fooling people. Right? You want us to be better informed so we get smarter. They think we’re dumb and it’s to their advantage to keep us that way.Dan Groat
53
How do we keep convincing young people to die in fights they didn’t start for reasons we’re too devious to tell the truth about? It’s way too easy for governments to spend other people’s blood. Maybe only the sons and daughters of those who declare the wars should be allowed to fight and die.Dan Groat
54
People don’t die so the universe can gauge your reaction. They die because life is finite.Dan Groat
55
Human thought and human caring go on in one brain and one heart at a time. Groups are necessary. Regulations are necessary. Government, I would hope limited government, is necessary. But it all starts with the individual. Everything that is accomplished starts with one person, even if the group steps in and helps; it’s still one brain and one heart at a time.Dan Groat
56
A hopeful journey is more important than the destination.Dan Groat
57
Men who have been in war have a different attitude about being wronged.Dan Groat
58
Back home. What wonderful words. What a wonderful place.Dan Groat
59
I wish but to share your gifts as a young boy on his birthday would excitedly rip open his packages to the view of others.Dan Groat
60
My world was very limited in size and experience. Small things took on extra importance, at least to a child.Dan Groat
61
It made him wonder if all things taken from their home too soon lost some of their bloom.Dan Groat
62
He had no ability to give up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to quit, he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. It never had been.Dan Groat
63
Surviving is about need. Living is about want.Dan Groat
64
If you decide to take somebody on, don’t look behind you, because there won’t be anybody there. You’ll be all alone.Dan Groat
65
They understood that brave men could be injured more by pity than by disease.Dan Groat
66
Gifford Ulrich didn’t know the distance from despair to hope, but he knew hope didn’t sleep in alleys.Dan Groat
67
As I have aged, I’ve been lucky never to reach old. Old is always at least five or ten years beyond my current calendar stage.Dan Groat
68
A person gets built and stands for a few years and then nature’s demolition team comes in.Dan Groat
69
My name Quan. Quan Nguyen. This Kim-Ly, wife. We next door. Do nails. We with Mr. Blaylock. He fight, we fight. We come here from Viet Nam. This good country, but sometimes, good people in good country have to fight.Dan Groat
70
Winning and losing was suddenly elevated to be about things that had no score and no teams and no uniforms; just one player at a time dealing with his life, his own struggle, his own triumph and torment.Dan Groat
71
Those who show no loyalty give up the right to expect any.Dan Groat
72
Fear was the hand of the devil holding a scalding hot branding iron and touching your brain and your stomach and yelling at you to run with leaden feet.Dan Groat
73
True genius is a complete stranger to most, a momentary acquaintance to others, a lasting friend to few.Dan Groat
74
In this country our principles should not be silent.Dan Groat
75
Now, it’s time for me to lock up and go. Listen to me. Lock up an empty building that’s gonna be torn down. Makes no sense. Like an old man tellin’ a lie to his son from his death bed. What’s the point? Who besides yourself are you fooling?Dan Groat
76
We get so beat down by what we need, sometimes we forget how to want.Dan Groat
77
The weak thrive on indulgence.Dan Groat
78
He knew most men only heard what they wanted to hear, and he had no desire to be like most men.Dan Groat
79
Despite his best efforts, maintaining dignity in a head attached to an unclean body wrapped in unclean garments was a battle that encouraged surrender.Dan Groat
80
There’s nothing wrong with fighting when you have no choice. As a matter of fact, it’s what you should do, but when you fight, fight to win.Dan Groat
81
I wonder how long it takes for these people we elect to forget who they work for?Dan Groat
82
What kind of country has this become? Decent people can’t do anything without being watched.Dan Groat
83
It must be great to spend time in a spot and if you walk away, it’s so much better than before because of something you did.Dan Groat