expectation isn't the same as desire

Canada, at the moment, is going through a Lord of the Rings moment. Having been a lowly Hobbit with furry feet and fun parties, with fireworks and beer, it has now been handed the Ring of Power: a large supply of fossil fuel, in the form of oil/tar sand and coal. Will it shrivel into an evil RingWraith? Will it become an addicted Golum? Will it refuse the Ring, like Galadriel, fearful of what So Much Power (in both senses of the word) will do to its inner being? Will it try to deal with the Ring responsibly, like Gandalf? Will it side with the Ents?

And she finds it difficult to believe—that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.

Once I was in Texas, where they had this thing called Ralph the Swimming Pig. You went into a theater and you were looking through a great big window at people dressed as mermaids swimming around with oxygen tanks. One of the mermaids had a bottle of milk, and a small Ralph the Swimming Pig dove in and swam over. Naturally, afterward, I said in the cafeteria, "What happens to the Ralphs when they get bigger? Would you serve Ralphs who have retired?" "Oh no! We would never do such a thing."

I don't find the idea of sewing degrading. A thing is degrading when you are forced to do it, through economic reasons or through slavery or some other form of compulsion.

For the children with their greedy little mouths represent the future, which like time itself will devour all now alive.

In his student days, he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn't have it both ways, he'd pointed out: if women are seduced and abandoned they're supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with.