I read six books from California instead of three. Here are favorite quotes from the extra titles I read.

From Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

“The first thing you would notice about our island, I think, is the wind. It blows almost every day.”

“The wide beds of kelp which surround our island on three sides come close to the shore and spread out to sea for a distance of a league.”

“I gathered gull eggs on the cliff and Ramo speared a string of small fish in one of the tide pools.”

“The laws of Ghalas-at forbade the making of weapons by women of the tribe, so I went out to search for any that might have been left behind.”

“The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from the sand plants on the dunes.”

“All day Rontu had been barking – at the cormorants, the gulls, the seals – at everything that moved. Now he was quiet, watching the black thing in the water.”

“Far down, the sea ferns moved as though a breeze were blowing there.”

“Someday I wanted to make myself a skirt of cormorant feathers.”

“Animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”

From The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

“And all the other hopeful poets were standing around in various costumes, worn-at-the-sleeves corduroy jackets, scuffy shoes, books sticking out of their pockets.”

“We could hear creeks rushing coldly below on cold starlit rocks.”

“Morley woke up from his nervous small sleep of dawn, yawned, and yelled ‘Yodelayhee!’ which echoed toward vales in the distance.”

“A beautiful morning – red pristine shafts of sunlight coming in over the hill and slanting down into the cold trees like Cathedral light, and the mists rising to meet the sun, and all the way around the giant secret roar of tumbling creeks probably with films of ice in the pools.”

“Shaggy dogs were barking in the golden red sunlight slanting down from the hundred-foot branches of the firs and ponderosas.”

“Walking in this country you could understand the perfect gems of haikus the Oriental poets had written, never getting drunk in the mountains or anything but just going along as fresh as children writing down what they saw without literary devices or fanciness of expression.”

“Either side of the border, either way you slice the baloney, a homeless man was in hot water. Where would I find a quiet grove to meditate in, to live in forever?”

From The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

“At night we dreamed of our husbands. We dreamed of new wooden sandals and endless bolts of indigo silk and of living, one day, in a house with a chimney.”

“Were they still walking three steps behind our fathers on the streets with their arms full of packages while our fathers carried nothing at all?”

“We knew how to serve tea and arrange flowers and sit quietly on our flat wide feet for hours, saying absolutely nothing of substance at all.”

“A girl must blend into a room: She must be present without appearing to exist.”