The World As We Know It by Joseph Monninger, r. Nov. 2014

p. 25 His workshop - a converted two-horse barn with a large, nickel-plated Franklin coal stove in the middle - was the kind of space that made visitors stop and silently evaluate their own lives.

p. 30 "Don't be fooled that there is something better than land. There isn't. The land will belong to you both. Don't divide it. Don't fracture it. Cut it judiciously. Walk it often and let it seep into you."

p. 31 He was a happy man. He had work to do and breakfast to come.

p. 38 I could hear a light, freezing rain falling on the roof. It felt delicious to be in bed, to feel the ache of a day spent outdoors in the cold, yet to be utterly warm and tired and ready for sleep.

p. 39 "You know Romeo and Juliet were only a little older than we are right now and they're the most famous lovers in the world." "But that's a story." "Everything is a story. If it didn't happened right in front of you, then it's a story."

p. 57 It was the world that I lived in, the world of my youth, and I knew and trusted it and believed it would always remain with me, carried in my heart like blood or knowing. And I understood for the first time that the great land did not exist in the north, or anywhere distant at all, really. It was here instead, on a hillside in New Hampshire, beside a white river flowing south and carrying the snow away each spring.

p. 69 "Character is plot," Sarah said often. "That's what my English teacher always says. She says we're interested in characters, not simple events. If all you need to make a film interesting is a bunch of events, then it would be easy. No, we have to care about the characters and see their predicaments."

p. 149 "There are no outdoorsmen! Just guys running around in the woods."

p. 153 "Dad helped us to be men. It sounds all weird when you talk like this, but it's true. He never made it look hard. He just spent time with us."

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, r. Nov. 2014

(unknown page numbers b/c audiobook)

Still though, I think if you're not self-obsessed, you're probably boring.