Normally we honor Tuck Everlasting during the first week of August, but Natalie Babbitt--the book's author--passed away this week. We honor her today by reciting some of our favorite quotes from Tuck Everlasting.
The
first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the
live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its
turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and
those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August
is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and
glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is
lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain.
These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do
things they are sure to be sorry for after.
...
No
connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The
wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A
ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed
points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds
together. But sometimes people find this out too late.
...
Still-there's
no use trying to figure why things fall the way they do. Things just are, and
fussing don't bring changes.
...
But
dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out
the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's
the blessing.
Works Cited
Tuck Everlasting
