“My mother brought this up in the first week after my father passed away. In a time like that, the past meets you wherever you turn. The days do not use their own hours and minutes, they find ones you have lived through with the person you are missing.” - Jick McCaskill, in English Creek by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 333
“It still floors me, how the mountains are not the same any two days in a row. As if hundreds of copies of those mountains exist and each dawn brings in a fresh one, of new color, new prominence of some feature over the others, a different wrapping of cloud or rinse of sun for this day's version.” -Jick McCaskill, in English Creek by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 77
“And finally, spring's offspring. Summer.”
- Jick McCaskill in English Creek by Ivan Doig, p. 34
“Ye can see for as long as your eye holds out, in this country." -Walter Kyle, in English Creek by Ivan Doig, p. 16
“…my mother forever tried to tell the other three of us. That the past is a taker, not a giver. It was a warning she felt she had to put out, in that particular tone of voice with punctuation all through it, fairly often in our family. When we could start hearing her commas and capital letters we knew the topic had become Facing Facts, Not Going Around with Our Heads Stuck in Yesterday.” - Jick McCaskill in English Creek by Ivan Doig, pp. 3-4
(BTW, if “Read More Books” made your New Year to-do list, anything by Ivan Doig is a high-yield investment.)
