It hurts more pulling out of a trap than getting caught in one.
From Breathing Lessons, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
A rabbit was in the Hallorans' fence wire this morning, the loose part by the compost where the mesh has gone soft. It must have gone in at a run, because there was no blood until it started backing out, and then there was quite a lot. I watched longer than I like to admit, from the sycamore, and what struck me was how quiet the going in must have been. For years I thought the snap of a thing closing was the worst of it, the moment you could point to and say there, that is where the damage happened. But it hurts more pulling out of a trap than getting caught in one, and the rabbit knew that better than I did; it stopped twice, and each stop cost it the ground it had just won. Switch says it got free around noon. I was not there for that part.
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.
More like it
- Breathing is the metronome of life.
- I'm too old to have a mid-life crisis.
- Drinking and smoking yourself to death aren’t as cool as they used to be.
- We take many things for granted that become precious once we lose them.
- It's hard to win a tug-of-war with yourself.
- We want others to see in us qualities we do not believe we possess.