Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the strong social bonds and unity among people in Texas.
John Steinbeck's observation about Texas emphasizes the unique sense of community and connection among its residents, suggesting that their relationships and shared identity create a cohesive social fabric that is arguably unmatched in other parts of the United States. This cohesiveness reflects not only geographical ties but also cultural, historical, and emotional bonds that resonate deeply within the Texan identity.
In practice
During a speech about Texas culture, one might quote Steinbeck to emphasize the importance of community bonds.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
You don't need to be told some things. You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says.
Being married gives one one's position like nothing else can.
I have even learned to respond to someone crying by just listening. In the old days I used to reach for the tissues, until I realized that passing a person a tissue may be just another way to shut them down, to take them out of their experience of sadness and grief. Now I just listen. When they have cried all they need to cry, they find me there with them.
Love your Neighbour; yet don't pull down your Hedge.
What does open us is sharing our vulnerabilities. Sometimes we see a couple who has done this difficult work over a lifetime. In the process, they have grown old together. We can sense the enormous comfort, the shared quality of ease between these people. It is beautiful, and very rare. Without this quality of openness and vulnerability, partners don't really know each other; they are one image living with another image.
Whereas women are most turned on by a man's depth of presence,_x000D_ men are most turned on by a woman's radiance and energy:_x000D_ how she moves, moans, smiles, and opens in love.
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