Asking who is to blame is like asking which snowflake caused the avalanche.
From The Fears That Bind, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The elm by the Dunbars' fence dropped a limb Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning there were four of them standing under it deciding whose fault it was. The storm, said one. The borers, said another. The man who topped it badly nine years ago, said the woman in the green coat, and everybody liked that best because he had moved away. I sat on the wire and watched the limb, which had been dying in small increments since before any of them lived there. For most of my life I went looking for the one wrong thing too, as though a nest comes apart because a single twig failed; it comes apart because of weather and weight and the thousand places it was only almost tight. Asking who is to blame is like asking which snowflake caused the avalanche. What I cannot work out is why nobody looks up at the rest of the tree.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- The unthinkable is not undoable.
- A bully is a sheep in wolf's clothing.
- Practice temperance before you counsel it.
- Telling you what you want to hear makes me an echo rather than a mirror.
- There are endless ways to stamp your feet but all that adds is noise.
- Two dogs alone have more fun than two dogs and a bone.