Everyone thinks that the old days were better, or that they were harder, and the modern times are chaotic and complex, or easier all around, but I think people's hearts have always been the same, happy and sad, and that hasn't changed at all. It's just the shapes of lives that change, not the lives themselves.

~ Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle Brian Doyle Happy And Sad Lives Living Mink River Modern Times Old Days People Time

There are stories in the air as thick as birds around me, he would say. I will save those stories from starving he would say. I have a great hunger for stories, he would say.

~ Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle Birds Brian Doyle Hunger Mink River Stories Sustenance

Rained gently last night, just enough to wash the town clean, and then today a clean crisp fat spring day, the air redolent, the kind of green minty succulent air you'd bottle if you could and snort greedily on bleak, wet January evenings when the streetlights hzzzt on at four in the afternoon and all existence seems hopeless and sad.

~ Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle Air Cleansed Crisp Green Mink River Minty Rain