Things to Read: By the River

While picking up a book at the bookstore today, I perused the selection of Paulo Coelho's novels. They did not have By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept; I think, though, that I shall ask them to find it for me.  There is something about the quotations from that work that I find compelling.  Perhaps I should consider The Alchemist -- his most well-known work -- also.  We shall see. 

But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.

The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.

― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept