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32781d7 I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition. Ludwig Wittgenstein
cb27d3a In writing The Invention of Wings, I was inspired by the words of Professor Julius Lester, which I kept propped on my desk: "History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own." Sue Monk Kidd
a92c05c I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over a million times daily--choosing love, then choosing it again...how loving and being in love could be so different. Sue Monk Kidd
938e968 Still everyone, including the abbot, had said that he was running away from his grief. They'd had no idea what they were talking about. He'd cradled his grief, almost to the point of loving it. For so long he refused to give it up, because leaving it behind was like leaving her. Sue Monk Kidd
de04224 Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence. Samuel Beckett
05dcca7 From Beckett's "The Unnamable": "They love each other, marry, in order to love each other better, more conveniently, he goes off to the wars, he dies at the wars, she weeps, with emotion, at having loved him, at having lost him, yep, marries again, in order to love again..., more conveniently again, they love each other, you love as many times as necessary, as necessary in order to be happy, he comes back, the other comes back, from the war.. Samuel Beckett
09e2836 It's a lot to ask of one creature, it's a lot to ask, that he should first behave as if he were not, then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions. Samuel Beckett
30714d9 We are no longer the same, you wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience, whereas sorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not, like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it, is it not. Samuel Beckett
1f6fab9 Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned. friendship solitude Samuel Beckett
17df228 I have spoken softly, gone my ways softly, all my days, as behoves one who has nothing to say, nowhere to go, and so nothing to gain by being seen or heard. Samuel Beckett
c6fb3bf In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness. empty Samuel Beckett
efbacf8 And what I have, what I am, is enough, was always enough for me, and as far as my dear little sweet little future is concerned I have no qualms, I have a good time coming. Samuel Beckett
5aae73d What was God doing with himself before the creation? Samuel Beckett
cc2e462 que ferais-je sans ce monde que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions ou etre ne dure qu'un instant ou chaque instant verse dans le vide dans l'oubli d'avoir ete sans cette onde ou a la fin corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent que ferais-je sans ce silence gouffre des murmures haletant furieux vers le secours vers l'amour sans ce ciel qui s'eleve sur la poussieere de ses lests que ferais-je je ferais comme hier comme aujour.. french poems Samuel Beckett
b82016e That is one of the many reasons why I avoid speaking as much as possible. For I always say either too much or too little, which is a terrible thing for a man with a passion for truth like mine. Samuel Beckett
c512be1 It shouldn't have happened at all, but their friendship had been cemented in only the time it took to get to school that morning - Adam demonstrating how to fasten the Camaro's ground wire more securely, Gansey lifting Adam's bike halfway into the trunk so they could ride to school together, Adam confessing he worked at a mechanic's to put himself through Aglionby, and Gansey turning to the passenger seat and asking, "What do you know about.. maggie-stiefvater richard-gansey-iii the-dream-thieves the-raven-cycle Maggie Stiefvater
5552d98 To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse--the cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature. Richard Adams
e9bb7a8 Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn't they? Richard Adams
f1f40ae Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and ar.. Vladimir Nabokov
09cfb5b The summer night was starless and stirless, with distant spasms of silent lightning. Vladimir Nabokov
1665e19 His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next. Joseph Conrad
6e2cccb There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. fiction marlow Joseph Conrad
6986b53 For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Joseph Conrad
d792c94 I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. Joseph Conrad
a264c72 I didn't completely forget how to be nice or feminine because I have a career. Mindy Kaling
65102d3 But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don't trust anybody with your real emotions: if you've got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never with your feelings. They are bound to trample on them. D.H. Lawrence
a68f82b The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on. He took a face from the ancient gallery And he walked on down the hall He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he Paid a visit to his brother, and then he He walked on down the hall, and And he came to a door...and he looked inside Father, yes son, I want to kill you Mother...I want to...fuck you kill killer the-end The Doors
fdfac1e Maybe life is a process of trading hopes for memories. William T. Vollmann
ba74a4d because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. Alan Paton
b8172e1 and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead. Cormac McCarthy
b1f3c9c Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God. Cormac McCarthy
36b8270 In the neuter austerity of that terrain all phenomena were bequeathed a strange equality and no one thing nor spider nor stone nor blade of grass could put forth claim to precedence. The very clarity of these articles belied their familiarity, for the eye predicates the whole on some feature or part and here was nothing more luminous than another and nothing more enshadowed and in the optical democracy of such landscapes all preference is m.. meaninglessness nature-and-man Cormac McCarthy
67135a9 And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day. dreams Cormac McCarthy
86a8792 So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters [...]. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for .. Annie Dillard
0cb31ce I wake up thinking: What am I reading? What will I read next? I'm terrified that I'll run out, that I will read through all I want to, and be forced to learn wildflowers at last, to keep awake. Annie Dillard
e699784 Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song, and dance... stillness Annie Dillard
473714d Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you're alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet's roundness arc between your feet. landscape nature walking Annie Dillard
b50b409 I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkness just as much as the light- that in fact the dark parts make the light visible; without them, the light would disappear. But I guess he has to figure other stuff out first, like how to keep his neck from flopping all over the place and how to sit up. Anne Lamott
62cc35e Ram Dass, who described himself as a Hin-Jew, said that ultimately we're all just walking each other home. I love that. I try to live by it. Anne Lamott
41011d8 When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down. children teaching Anne Lamott
95c9cc3 Was there ever a true great love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections? I honestly don't think so. In part, this was my fault. It was my nature, I suppose. I could not let myself be that unmindful. Isn't that what love is-losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's fault, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind.. Amy Tan
666d54f You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who's saved? Who's not? Amy Tan
d990a2e Each day the storm clouds were opening like great purple flowers and pouring out their dark thunder. Each nightfall, the storm was laid down on their houses like a burden the day had carried. Eudora Welty
c9ef64a One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [...] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer. literature Anne Fadiman