Best 33 quotes of Steven James Taylor on MyQuotes

Alice told Shadow a magical tale of the green wreath and the red ribbon. In the story, Father Sky, who reigned over the spirit, came to Mother Earth, who bore the form of a woman of clay named Mary. Sky and Earth married, and together they conceived a beautiful star child made of both spirit and earth. The Star Child grew up and walked the world. The child of Father Sky and Mother Earth taught the world to live with the spirit in their clay hearts. Alice said the red of the holiday bow signified the Star Child’s sacrifice, and the green balsam of the wreath signified the everlasting life that was for all people born to the spirit of Father Sky. Shadow loved the story. It reminded him of his own sweet mother and the tales of Thunderbird who flew the skies in bird form in service to Gitche Manitou. Thunderbird was Shadow’s guardian, just like Shadow was the guardian for Theo. Shadow adored the season of light. He always felt warm and cozy when it came around.

Do not hide. All life is sacred! Even the blessed earth you take into your mouth.

Every rhythm prepares a future. The prayers sung, the drums that beat around the stone circle of the fire pit so long ago, still rang. In the icy air, Shadow felt the tremendous rhythm of Thunderbird’s wings beating at his own ribs.

Every thought you have, every move you make, is like a pebble dropped into water, Theo. It continues to make ripples. That’s why it is so important your rhythms be true to life’s Spirit. For in that way, your future will always rest in compassion. For such is life’s Spirit. It is the spirit of compassion. May this office and your cadence thrum with the kindness of your holy hands, Dr. Snow.

For some, being a vet was a means to make a living. For Theo, helping animals was a photo of his soul, the coat of his will.

Have you ever walked with your dog on a summer’s morning on the seashore? Or walked with him on an autumn’s afternoon when the leaves are in full color?” Inevitably, the client would say yes. “And did it sometimes feel that all of Nature was your own room? That you could be there forever?” “Yes.” “Well, that’s what dogs do. They destroy time.

He could not say “bad dog.” He could not say “good boy.” He could not say anything. Quiet breathed like some darkening monster at the window of Theo’s mind.

He tried?” she screamed. “It is not enough to try!” she screamed again. “He promised me! He promised us!

I have been fortunate, he thought. I have known many mothers. Alice and Lora and Oota Dabun, but I will always recall my first mom when I was but a Lost Boy. Of all my mothers, I will always remember my Wendy most.

It is impossible to stop cadence. A bell rings long after the clapper hits the cup.

Master the dog, and in so doing you shall master yourself.

Shadow could not understand about the war games that humans played. When they roughhoused, they killed each other. Why can’t they just roughhouse like dogs, and when they are through, walk away?

Shadow loved Emma. She was an innocent. She was a girl without a crack in her heart. He wore the space helmet. He wore the red lipstick. Largely, the lipstick was scrawled onto his old teeth, for Emma had not yet learned to color inside the lines.

She would talk of castles and princesses and a woman named Scheherazade who had a thousand and one stories to tell. Shadow loved it when Emma told him her dreams. With her little warm fingers, Emma stroked his head as if he were but a puppy with all the strength of his youth yet to come, for the greatest joy in life is the conviction that we are loved in spite of ourselves. His legs may have been faded yellow but Shadow knew that he was loved by Theo’s daughter.

Still, the comfort in his small bed made Theo feel tragic, his mattress a coffin, the bludgeoning rain his burial soil.

That is the one thing sorrow surely does—in our pain, it reveals the deep treasures of this marred and beautiful world. And guides like Shadow do this for us—they make us travelers. They break our hearts so we can flow to the greater heart where happiness, too, becomes a sacred matter.

The King of Sea and Sky was proud of Theo’s mastery. Being a novice was safe. When you are learning how to do something, you do not have to worry about whether or not you are good at it. But when you have done something, have learned how to do it again, you are not safe anymore. Being a master opens you up to judgment.

Theo cast his emerald eyes back to the girl at the order window. He could hardly breathe. Her radiance was as inescapable as the sun. Love is never stronger than the love in the young. There, love is unreasonable and preposterous and beautiful. Theo did not realize it at the time, but his young self was dying inside to the man he would become.

Theo often walked barefoot. He loved the cold ooze of the marsh at his toes. He felt the knowingness of the wild grass against his foot pads. Beneath his growing body, toiling the deep soil, the earthworms wriggled, ruled by the thrum-ming of consciousness reserved especially for their species. The rhythms shot straight to his own body. When he walked barefoot with Shadow, he felt the connection between him, his dog, and the heaven beneath his feet. He felt the connection not only with his dog but with all dogs.

Theo was struck by his dog, even in death. For while Theo was away at school or sleeping or distracted, Shadow, well, Shadow was still out there in the neighborhood, making friends.

There was nothing of which to be afraid. The only thing to fear was the evil men did because they believed the dark cloak of night, like Ted did, covered their offenses.

They drove through the small town. Theo could see little through the windshield, but his senses were alive. The three of them—the beater, the boy, and the dog—said nothing all the way home, anchored in the weight of their terrible love.

They kissed and hugged and played roughhouse. Whenever love was mentioned, roughhouse was generally forthcoming, at least as far as Shadow could tell.

Too small, too weak to get his demons behind him,” Theo later wrote in his journal, full of the hard, tragic judgment children have when their parents disappoint them so severely.

To take their land we called them ‘demons,’ ‘savages.’ It is easy to kill a demon. It is much harder to kill a man.

Walk with me. Walk with me, buddy.

When Alice was young, she had no idea what a jag even was. In those early days of their love affair, Alice found Ted’s rogue demeanor attractive. He was a Snow. But he was a rebel. He stood up to his stern father, and no one in the Snow family did that. The Snows were all too afraid of losing their entitlements. Ted had a relaxed swagger in his walk. Alice loved his confidence, the fashion of his easy laughter. She had no idea, not even a suspicion, that it was drink that fueled his swagger as well as his gumption. He was almost always drunk. But she was a teenager and a dreamer, and she loved his seeming fearlessness. He was handsome as well, with soft eyes that had a happy mischief to them. His thick, curly hair bounced as he swaggered. He was a picture. She thought he was hardy and strong, but it was the heat of the alcohol that made his cheeks flush apple red. He appeared to be the picture of health, but indeed, he wasn’t. He never was.

When Theo would laugh or guffaw beneath the spreading canopy of Red, Shadow knew he had accomplished his job. The gray mask of civilization had fallen from the boy. Death left his eyes. Blood returned to his cheeks. There was song in his voice. Together, dog and master were once again in the huff and roar of the natural, bliss-filled world. They played ball, Shadow fetched rope, and, weather permitting, they swam in the sea. They proved once more what the ancients knew in the magical first world—that there was peace in play.

While this dump was reviled by humans, to Shadow it was a magical place of the most succulent fragrances . . . of rotting meat and fermenting apples. He braved the ravaging moths and the mad hornets to romp among the piles of garbage, intoxicated by the smells of life on earth—of brine in the pick-ling vat, coffee grounds, blackened toast, the flat, moist plug of apple tobacco, decaying books, broken hens’ eggs, sawdust shavings, and the whiff of the cold metal in the mattress springs. His nose trembled in the flutter of his nostrils. The odor of metal was so potent he could taste the steel in his mouth.

Why, Daddy?” she asked. She still had that strange look on her face. “Why do dogs die so young? Shadow was only seventeen. He was not even as old as my babysitter.” “To teach us,” he said. “Teach us what, Daddy?” “Compassion,” he replied. “But why, Daddy?” she asked. “So that we might be kinder. So we might make the world kinder. They leave, but they leave us with their lesson. All great teachers do that.” “Yes,” said Emma. “He was a good teacher to me too. He was also a wonderful runway model.” He handed her the polaroid. She examined its rivulets and splotches. She put her thumb on the smudges, rubbing them. To Theo, it seemed she knew of the eyes and mouth that once had been. Then the full gravity of the circumstance fell upon her. Emma wept. She was now a girl with a crack in her heart. The sorrows of the world were now available to her. Soon, she would know their beauty.

Wolves stood outside our fires, and humans were terrified,” answered Ahanu. “Yet our warrior-fathers did not kill them. The wolves came from Mother Earth. They were part of us. So, we brought what we feared to the warmth of the flame. Before the fire, we trained them. We loved them. We bred them to be useful to our tribes. Over the many years, what had frightened us now became our greatest allies. Together, these dogs and we people fought against the darkness of the wood.” Theo blinked, trying to understand. He looked at the golden puppy on the ground, running through the feet and legs of the adults. Then to Ahanu. “But, sir, why do you tell me this?” Theo asked. “This dog, who shall be under your care, belongs to the best of humankind’s creation. For man transformed that which he feared into something which could love him. The dog, Theo, is the great witness to the one truth. There is but the one truth. Four words like my tale. The truth is this: Love triumphs over fear. Remember what I say for I know you. Do not ask me how I know that you live in a storm of fury . . .” Then he said softly, intimately, “. . . and fear. But take heart, for love has overcome the wild world. Dogs were once wolves.

You have to ask for it,” Theo told Shadow. “Magic doesn’t come unless it’s summoned.

You know what Mrs. Shure, the librarian, told me?” “What’s that, Theo?” his father asked. “God does not make junk.” Ted stared into his tumbler, the dwindling ice cubes sloshing at the bottom of the glass. His fidget finger tapped at the glass. Knocking the ice against the wall of the tumbler and turning his face upward, Ted looked at Theo. “Therefore, I am not junk,” said Theo. “Yuh.” “And I came from you. You are not junk either, Dad. Just because you didn’t shoot a gun in France or just because you didn’t become an engineer, doesn’t mean you are any less than any other man. Dad, both you and I have made mistakes, but we are not junk.