Entries from the Commonplace Book

Found these entries from a couple of years ago in my commonplace book. From History of the Rain, by Niall Williams, a novel which I dearly loved:

Besides the river there are two things you never forget, that the moment you look at a river, that moment has already passed, and that everything is on its way to somewhere else.

and this

Each family functions in their own way, by rules reinvented daily. The strangeness of each of us is somehow accommodated so that there can be such a thing as a family and we can all live for some time at least in the same house. Normal is what you know....nothing in your family is unusual.