Common Prayers

Famous quotes containing the words common and/or prayers:

“The line of separation was very distinct, and the Indian immediately remarked, “I guess you and I go there,—I guess there’s room for my canoe there.” This was his common expression instead of saying “we.” He never addressed us by our names, though curious to know how they were spelled and what they meant, while we called him Polis. He had already guessed very accurately at our ages, and said that he was forty-eight.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sitting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)