It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright.
[Annie Dillard]
With love to my actual father, here a photo of my favorite fictional father, Atticus Finch, with his daughter Scout. (Well, technically the photo is of Gregory Peck and Mary Badham playing Atticus and Scout in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird.)
[Thanks to The Regulator Bookshop for posting this, and Celia Wolff for pointing it out to me.]