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Bejewelled in literature
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
I’m reviving my thread from 2016 to hear more from you all. 
Was re-reading Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas and indulging in some of my favourite literary phrases from it:
"It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobbledstreets silent and the hunched courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea."
and
"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs."
Do you have sentences, paragraphs or phrases from books that particularly sparkle for you? |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"He lay, often, looking at her sleeping face in the new light that fell in through the open walls of the strange house, and he stared at her skin and hair with his mouth open, transfixed by the quick stillness of her, struck dumb with the physical fact of her existence as though she was some careless star-thing that slept on quite unaware of its incandescent power; the casualness and ease with which she slept there amazed him; he couldn't believe that such beauty could survive without some superhumanly intense conscious effort."
Use of Weapons, Iain M Banks |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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""He lay, often, looking at her sleeping face in the new light that fell in through the open walls of the strange house, and he stared at her skin and hair with his mouth open, transfixed by the quick stillness of her, struck dumb with the physical fact of her existence as though she was some careless star-thing that slept on quite unaware of its incandescent power; the casualness and ease with which she slept there amazed him; he couldn't believe that such beauty could survive without some superhumanly intense conscious effort."
Use of Weapons, Iain M Banks"
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I studied Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" for my A-Level English & remember going to Howarth with a friend to wander on the moors as we learned quotes for our exam. The strength of Cathy's love for Heathcliff in that book blew me away:
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary". |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Might not be as intellectual as you, but as a child I was terrified of the dark. My Dad bought me 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'
One character spoke about the night, saying that there was not one night, but lots of different nights.
This fascinated me, and I wanted to discover it, the cat was right, each night is different, different hues, colours, skies. I got over the fear because of the sentence in that book.
Not sure why it stuck with me, but it did. When my boys were old enough, Owl Who Was Afraid was the first book I bought them.
Sorry, sounds daft I know |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"I studied Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" for my A-Level English & remember going to Howarth with a friend to wander on the moors as we learned quotes for our exam. The strength of Cathy's love for Heathcliff in that book blew me away:
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary"."
That’s just core shakingly good. |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"Might not be as intellectual as you, but as a child I was terrified of the dark. My Dad bought me 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'
One character spoke about the night, saying that there was not one night, but lots of different nights.
This fascinated me, and I wanted to discover it, the cat was right, each night is different, different hues, colours, skies. I got over the fear because of the sentence in that book.
Not sure why it stuck with me, but it did. When my boys were old enough, Owl Who Was Afraid was the first book I bought them.
Sorry, sounds daft I know "
Not in the slightest bit daft. I adored this book and Plop. I’m so glad you posted |
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By *cgkcCouple
over a year ago
Hitchin |
'Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.'
Dunno why that stays with me. I haven't eaten meat since 1992. |
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"I studied Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" for my A-Level English & remember going to Howarth with a friend to wander on the moors as we learned quotes for our exam. The strength of Cathy's love for Heathcliff in that book blew me away:
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary".
That’s just core shakingly good."
Isn't it?! I've literally never forgotten it  |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“Children’s” literature is as erudite and impactful as any adult work. I like to bellow Max’s line from Where the Wild Things Are before getting down to filth!!
And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!” ..
 |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"'Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.'
Dunno why that stays with me. I haven't eaten meat since 1992."
Good ol’ Joyce  |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
|
"Might not be as intellectual as you, but as a child I was terrified of the dark. My Dad bought me 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'
One character spoke about the night, saying that there was not one night, but lots of different nights.
This fascinated me, and I wanted to discover it, the cat was right, each night is different, different hues, colours, skies. I got over the fear because of the sentence in that book.
Not sure why it stuck with me, but it did. When my boys were old enough, Owl Who Was Afraid was the first book I bought them.
Sorry, sounds daft I know
Not in the slightest bit daft. I adored this book and Plop. I’m so glad you posted "
Thank you xx |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Bronte
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing anonymity or registering wrongs
Apt. I need to heed this. "
I thought it quite apt
I was going to quote some rather feminist stuff from pride and prejudice but decided on that instead  |
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"“Children’s” literature is as erudite and impactful as any adult work. I like to bellow Max’s line from Where the Wild Things Are before getting down to filth!!
And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!” ..
"
Haha! Quite the image I now have in my head! |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"“Children’s” literature is as erudite and impactful as any adult work. I like to bellow Max’s line from Where the Wild Things Are before getting down to filth!!
And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!” ..
"
The night Max made mischief of a different kind! Love that book xx |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"Bronte
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing anonymity or registering wrongs
Apt. I need to heed this.
I thought it quite apt
I was going to quote some rather feminist stuff from pride and prejudice but decided on that instead "
 |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth."
Sylvia Plath -- The Bell Jar |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"From an early age she had developed the art of being alone and generally preferred her own company to anyone else’s. She read books at enormous speed and judged them entirely on her ability to remove her from her material surroundings. In almost all the unhappiest days of her life she had been able to escape from her own inner world by living temporarily in someone else’s, and on the two or three occasions that she had been too upset to concentrate she had been desolate."
Sebastian Faulks -- The Girl at the Lion d'Or |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"A four-foot box, a foot for every year."
The last line of Mid-term Break by Séamus Heaney.
That final line made me tearful the first time I read it, and still does.
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
""A four-foot box, a foot for every year."
The last line of Mid-term Break by Séamus Heaney.
That final line made me tearful the first time I read it, and still does.
"
Ach. That’s heartbreaking. Xx |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"Let me tell you something about her. It’s that middle stretch of the night, when the curtains leak no light, the only street-noise is the grizzle of a returning Romeo, and the birds haven’t begun their routine yet cheering business. She’s lying on her side, turned away from me. I can’t see her in the dark, but from the hushed swell of her breathing I could draw you the map of her body. When she’s happy she can sleep for hours in the same position. I’ve watched over her in all those sewery parts of the night, and can testify that she doesn’t move. It could be just down to good digestion and calm dreams, of course; but I take it as a sign of happiness..........
...............Anyway ... she’s asleep, turned away from me on her side. The usual stratagems and repositionings have failed to induce narcosis in me, so I decide to settle myself against the soft zigzag of her body. As I move and start to nestle my shin against a calf whose muscles are loosened by sleep, she senses what I’m doing, and without waking reaches up with her left hand and pulls the hair o her shoulders on to the top of her head, leaving me her bare nape to nestle in. Each time she does this I feel a shudder of love at the exactness of this sleeping courtesy. My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love. At that moment, unconsciously, she’s touched some secret fulcrum of my feelings for her. She doesn’t know, of course; I’ve never told her of this tiny, precise pleasure of the night. Though I’m telling her now, I suppose ..."
Julian Barnes -- A History of the World in 10½ Chapters |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I'm not a great reader of fiction
I prefer fact based books and travel writings, eapecially those that mix travel with humour ...
"My particular dread-the vivid possibility that left me staring at tree shadows on the bedroom ceiling night after night-was having to lie in a small tent, alone in an inky wilderness, listening to a foraging bear outside and wondering what its intentions were. I was especially riveted by an amateur photograph in Herrero's book, taken late at night by a camper with a flash at a campground out West. The photograph caught four black bears as they puzzled over a suspended food bag. The bears were clearly startled but not remotely alarmed by the flash. It was not the size or demeanor of the bears that troubled me-they looked almost comically nonaggressive, like four guys who had gotten a Frisbee caught up a tree-but their numbers. Up to that moment it had not occurred to me that bears might prowl in parties. What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children's parties-I daresay it would even give a merry toot-and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag"
Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
"She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever."
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
""She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever."
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass"
Oh the aches! |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation -- it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him."
and
"She lay in the dark and knew everything."
Ian McEwan -- Atonement |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
Oscar for you, Meli
"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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""She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever."
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass"
Love this. It's so evocative. I want to read the rest of the book now.... |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.”
Marcel Proust -- In Search of Lost Time |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Lord Byron |
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From 1984, O'Brien's final speech to Winston in Room 101:
"There will be no loyalty, except loyalty to The Party. No Love except Love of Big Brother. All competing pleasures, we will destroy."
'seems more relevant than ever |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"A mouse took a stroll in a deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.
A man threatened chess; implied he was good
A gal said if I beat ya, can I slide on your wood?"
Oh yes, we will play this game, pretty faced dame.
Where do you get off making such a bold claim? |
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I shall sit down,' replied the cat, sitting down, 'but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.'
Your king is in check,' said Woland.
Very well, very well,' responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses.
And so, donna,' Woland addressed Margarita, 'I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth...
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgarkov |
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By *adyJayneWoman
over a year ago
Burnleyish (She/They) |
Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.
All I know about love - Neil Gaiman
An extract of a poem he wrote the morning of a friend's wedding. Oh to have such talent |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
|
"
Bill is a great writer!"
Now ... Maya Angelou
Where do I even start?
I caught the BBC coverage of her at The Hay Festival
I fell for her instantly, hook, line and sinker
She blew me away
I actually cried when she passed
I could sit here and reel off passage after passage of her poems, but the only book of hers I read was 'I know why the caged bird sings' ...
"To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity"
The sadness is in the power of that statement and power itself comes from the sadness it implies
She was a corker x
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
"André looked up, and in a chance angle of light he saw a woman’s face in which the eyes
were fixed with terrible ferocity on a child beside him. Why did she stare as though she
hated him? Then it came to André that she was not looking in hatred, but had kept her
eyes so intensely open in order to fix the picture of her child in her mind. She was looking
to remember, for ever."
Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
For NG |
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Pretty much anything by the great Leonard Cohen
“I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep.” |
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me
the detail, the intricate embroidery
on the collar, tiny shell buttons,
the hem stitched the way you were taught,
pricking just a thread, almost invisible.
Unclasp it like jewels, the gold
still hot from your body. Empty
your basket of figs. Spill your wine.
That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,cradling it on my tongue like the slickseed of pomegranate. I would lift it
tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.
Ellen Bass - Basket of Figs
NG |
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
"To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover."
Thomas Hardy - Return of the Native
NG, x |
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By *ackk25Man
over a year ago
Kilkenny |
“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.” — Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by David Leviathan |
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At first Pooh and Rabbit and Piglet walked together, and Tigger ran round them in circles,
and then, when the path got narrower, Rabbit, Piglet and Pooh walked one after another, and Tigger ran
round them in oblongs
A A Milne. 'Tigger is unbounced'
It's for children, but I think it may be one of the best lines I've read.
But my usual reading is sci-fi and fantasy.
As for 'under milk wood' I have two versions, the animated version of Richard Burton's recording and the recentish (2014) version. |
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Listening to Richard Burton voice narrating under milk Wood is captivating, have to stop whatever and just let his deep tone wash over..
Great thread Estella, lovely contributions and it reminds me I need to get back to some good literature..
Thanks.. |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"
Bill is a great writer!
Now ... Maya Angelou
Where do I even start?
I caught the BBC coverage of her at The Hay Festival
I fell for her instantly, hook, line and sinker
She blew me away
I actually cried when she passed
I could sit here and reel off passage after passage of her poems, but the only book of hers I read was 'I know why the caged bird sings' ...
"To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity"
The sadness is in the power of that statement and power itself comes from the sadness it implies
She was a corker x
"
Yes!! One of my favourites!!
I often am known to quote “Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?” to people, from Still I Rise.
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.” |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—’God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.'”
Kurt Vonnegut -- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater |
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By *ackk25Man
over a year ago
Kilkenny |
"Listening to Richard Burton voice narrating under milk Wood is captivating, have to stop whatever and just let his deep tone wash over..
Great thread Estella, lovely contributions and it reminds me I need to get back to some good literature..
Thanks.. "
Totally agree... Lovely thread one of the best I've come across in here! |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
Jack Kerouac - On The Road |
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“What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul”
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. The way the profile of her face and body refracted in the soupy twilight made me feel a little d*unk.”
Salinger - A Girl I Knew |
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By *ackk25Man
over a year ago
Kilkenny |
When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières |
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By *JohnMan
over a year ago
Newcastle upon Tyne |
Richard Flanagan, Death of a River Guide. The main character is drowning. As he dies (it takes the entire book), he has visions of his own past and that of his ancestors. There's an urgency and anger, but also resignation and timelessness. He's gone beyond the ordinary world.
"This is the river. Rising in the Cheyne Range. Falling down Mt Gell. Writhing like a snake in the wild lands at the base of the huge massif of Frenchmans Cap. Writing its past and prophesying its future in massive gorges slicing through mountains and cliffs so undercut they call them verandahs, and in eroded boulders and beautiful gilded eggs of river stone, and in beaches of river gravel that shift year to year, flood to flood, and in that gravel that once was rounded river rock that once was eroded boulder that once was undercut cliff that once was mountain and which will be again."
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.
We lived in the gaps between the stories.”
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”
EM Forster - A Room with a View |
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
"It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."
Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram.
Most of Shantaram is beautiful and it was tough to choose one quote. |
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Here is Edward Bear.. coming downstairs now..bump..bump ..bump ..on the back of his head.. behind Christopher robin..it is..as far as he knows.the only way of coming downstairs..but sometimes he feels that there really is another way..if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.. anyhow he's at the bottom and ready to be introduced to you... Winnie the Pooh |
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The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.
We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.
Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M. Pirzig |
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The men in the room suddenly realized that they did not want to know her better. She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.
And she held her sword, and she smiled like a knife.
TP&NG - Good Omens |
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
"The men in the room suddenly realized that they did not want to know her better. She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.
And she held her sword, and she smiled like a knife.
TP&NG - Good Omens "
Yes! Yes! |
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Shall I tell you what you have that other men don't have.. and that will make the future... tell me then he replied.. it's the courage of your own tenderness.. that's what it is...
Lady Chatterley's lover |
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By *eliWoman
over a year ago
. |
"The men in the room suddenly realized that they did not want to know her better. She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.
And she held her sword, and she smiled like a knife.
TP&NG - Good Omens "
This quote. |
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By *cgkcCouple
over a year ago
Hitchin |
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee |
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"Before I fall asleep at night, I close my eyes and wrap myself around you. I can feel your breath on my neck. In my mind it's real, you are real. Just writing about it makes me stare at the wall for minutes at a time like I'm in a trance. Today I sat in a park for hours and wrote hundreds of words to you. I looked up and saw people staring. They're always staring at me, pointing, trying to pry under my skull, trying to read my thoughts. I don't let them. I will never let them get to you, don't worry. I will never let them touch you. I will never sell you out.
Tonight I will be with you, entwined. Your smile will light one thousand jungles on fire. We will hover above the war-torn filth machine that this city is. In my thoughts I am invincible. When we touch, we are all things."
Henry Rollins - Black Coffee Blues. |
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By *educedWoman
over a year ago
Birmingham |
""Before I fall asleep at night, I close my eyes and wrap myself around you. I can feel your breath on my neck. In my mind it's real, you are real. Just writing about it makes me stare at the wall for minutes at a time like I'm in a trance. Today I sat in a park for hours and wrote hundreds of words to you. I looked up and saw people staring. They're always staring at me, pointing, trying to pry under my skull, trying to read my thoughts. I don't let them. I will never let them get to you, don't worry. I will never let them touch you. I will never sell you out.
Tonight I will be with you, entwined. Your smile will light one thousand jungles on fire. We will hover above the war-torn filth machine that this city is. In my thoughts I am invincible. When we touch, we are all things."
Henry Rollins - Black Coffee Blues."
That made my fanny flutter hard.
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By *onghMan
over a year ago
cardiff |
Foamfollower's question caught him wandering. "Are you a story-teller, Thomas Covenant?"
Absently, he replied, "I was once."
"And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?"
......"I live."
“Another?" Foamfollower returned. "In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more – with one word you will make me weep.”
Stephen Donaldson: Lord Foul's Bane, The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever.
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assur d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep.”
Shakespeare - Measure for Measure |
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"Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."
Murakami, Kafka on the shore
So many wonderful lines from him |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
|
There are many passages from the late Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels that have stayed with me. A lot of them reflect the dystopian or cynical flavour behind a lot of his work.
"They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today."
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By *stella OP Woman
over a year ago
London |
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
Joseph Heller - Catch-22 |
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"“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
Joseph Heller - Catch-22"
promised myself I'm watching this |
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By *JohnMan
over a year ago
Newcastle upon Tyne |
"
At last, evening settles in among the rich fruit-trees,
Having for so long been kept at bay
By music, laughter, mutual expressions of affection,
Of fondness, of love, of reluctance, of parting, of silence.
Frank Kuppner
"
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