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Poets and songwriters speak highly of spring as one of the great joys of life in the temperate zone, but in the real world most of spring is disappointing. We looked forward to it too long, and the spring we had in mind in February was warmer and dryer than the actual spring when it finally arrives. We'd expected it to be a whole season, like winter, instead of a handful of separate moments and single afternoons.
Barbara Holland -
Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending.
Barbara Holland
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Cats vary so widely that all data is meaningless and the professional classifiers gnash their teeth trying to come up with even a single fact common to all.
Barbara Holland -
Moral indignation is a pleasure, often the only pleasure, in many lives. It's also one of the few pleasures people feel obliged to force on other people.
Barbara Holland -
The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.
Barbara Holland -
By and large, people who enjoy teaching animals to roll over will find themselves happier with a dog.
Barbara Holland -
A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.
Barbara Holland -
True ownership of anything requires time.
Barbara Holland
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The United States government, in figuring our gross national product, defines 'durable goods' as anything that will last three years.
Barbara Holland -
My friends and I were all deathly afraid of our fathers, which was right and proper and even biblically ordained. Fathers were angry; it was their job.
Barbara Holland