Carmine Wendt

“My heart aches, a drowsy numbness pains as if of hemlock I had drunk."

Ode To A NIghtengale, John Keats”
― Barbara Sontheimer

“I had enjoyed something that did not belong to me, you see. When it was taken away, I was disappointed but not harmed.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day

“It’s in English,” I call out as it comes into focus. “It says ‘Made in China.’” At first Sister Loretta thinks I must be wrong, but when she sees the words for herself, she explains to us that God anticipated that the Communists in China would create technology that makes medals, rosaries, and plastic figurines really cheaply, and He was ready to temporarily forgive them for not being a democracy and for being pagans if they were willing to sell these holy goods to us at a fantastic discount, which shows us that God, like everyone else, goes out of His way to get a good deal on something He really needs. Who doesn’t like a bargain?”
― Kathleen Zamboni McCormick, Dodging Satan: My Irish/Italian, Sometimes Awesome, But Mostly Creepy, Childhood

“Those who are especially destructive they call ‘wolves’ or ‘jackals,’ but there is no wolf or jackal in the world who has been remotely as destructive as the average human.”
― Jane Smiley, The Hillside