It's Monday...and it's time for Borrowed Words

The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Mr. Stegner's writing had a big impact on me. I was writing down quote after quote while reading the book. The one thing that had the most influence on me was the subject of home, because I myself have moved tens of times, across cities, states and continents and I still do not feel I am at home. I still do not have that little piece of ground, building, four walls that I can call my own. Of course this melancholy and nostalgia after a home I hope to have caused me to quote on this subject today. I give you words borrowed from Wallace Stegner, Charles Dickens, Bill Bryson, Herman Hesse, Peter de Vries:

You had to stay in a place to make it a home. A home had to be lived in every day, every month, every year for a long time, till it was worn like an old shoe and fitted the comfortable curvatures of your life.

Wallace Stegner, The Big Rock Candy Mountain


Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

Charles Dickens


There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to see you, and you can't go home again.

Bill Bryson

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

Herman Hesse

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

Peter de Vries