Barbara Pym and Kahlil Gibran

May be an unlikely grouping but they are "in common" for me because both authors have been around for a while and yet this is my first reading.  

Gypsi told me about Barbara Pym and gave me copies of Excellent Women and Quartet in Summer.  The author was a writer from age sixteen  and she has been acclaimed "the most underrated writer of the century." She died in 1980.  Her writing style is up there with the best.

Quotes from Secrets of the Heart by Kahlil Gibran:  

"But now I eagerly attend Silence and hear its choirs singing the hymns of the ages and the songs of the firmament announcing the secrets of the Unseen."

"Now I realize the present moment contains all time and within it is all that can be hoped for, done and realized."

Now I realize that the trees blossom in Spring and bear fruit in Summer without seeking praise; and they drop their leaves in Autumn and become naked in Winter without fearing blame." 

"It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter. Tears that purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of life and its mystery. Laughter that brings me closer to my fellowmen."

"Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasp the heart and makes ii ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation."

"He who understands you is greater kin to you than your own brother.  For even your own kindred may neither understand you nor know your true worth."

"Man with his understanding cannot know what the rain is saying when it falls upon the leaves of the trees or when it taps at the window panes. He cannot know what the breeze is saying to the flowers in the fields."

I will be searching used book stores for more books by both of these authors.