quick quotes without the quill

Going to China

2010-07-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

...But it gradually seemed to me that I'd made myself believe something that wasn't true. I'd made myself believe that I was fine and happy and fulfilled on my own without the love of anyone else. Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit... And I thought: am I really going to spend the rest of my life without feeling that again? I thought: Iwant to go to China. It's full of treasures and strangeness and mysteries and joy.

~Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Stories

2010-07-17T20:20:00.001-07:00

Stories are the most important thing in the world.

Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all.

~Philip Pullman

Meaning

2010-07-17T20:14:00.001-07:00

The world existed to be read. And I read it.

~L.S. Schwartz, Ruined by Reading

Limitless

2010-07-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

I dreamt a limitless book,

A book unbound,

Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance

On every line there was a new horizon drawn,

New heavens supposed;

New states, new souls.

~Clive Barker, Abarat

any good?

2010-06-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

The reason I wanted to kill him was because I stood there and let him walk that boy out in the trees and shoot him and I never said nothin.

Would it have done any good?

No sir. But that don't make it right.

~Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Wild Animals.

2010-06-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

The other horses flared and bunched and looked back wildly. Before the colt could struggle up John Grady had squatted on its neck and pulled its head up and to one side and was holding the horse by the muzzle with the long bony head pressed against his chest and the hot sweet breath of it flooding up from the dark wells of its nostrils over his face and neck like news from another world.

They did not smell like horses.

They smelled like what they were, wild animals.

~Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

That Resonance

2010-06-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

That night he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wild flowers out of the ground and the flowers ran all blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off of them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.

-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

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The Reality of the Unreal

2010-01-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies, that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die, but things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on forever and ever.

~Chuck Palahniuk

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If People Were Rain

2010-01-14T08:05:00.000-08:00

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep... Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

~John Green, Looking for Alaska

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The Heart of a Star

2010-01-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

"So what I want to know is why it is that I can no longer find you, in my mind. You are still there, just, but you are there like a ghost, a will o' the wisp. Not long ago you burned--your heart burned--in my mind like silver fire. But after that night in the inn it became patchy and dim, and now it is not there at all."

Yvaine realized that she felt nothing but pity for the creature who had wanted her dead, so she said, "Could it be that the heart you seek is no longer my own?"

The old woman coughed.

The star waited for her to be done, and then she said, "I have given my heart to another."

"The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?"

"Yes."

"You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do."

"Nonetheless," said the star, "he has my heart."

~Neil Gaiman, Stardust

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2010-01-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

He nodded, and stumbled away from her;
he did not need to ask how she knew his name;
she had taken it from him along with certain other things,
such as his heart,
when he had kissed her.

Neil Gaiman, Stardust

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Night

2010-01-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

Through the casement he watched the night advancing in the heavens: and Night became personal to him--seeming like a queen walking into exile, with melancholy on her brow, while Venus, the diamond clasp of her mourning gown, gleamed there above the trees, alone, lost in the depths of azure.

~Vera, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

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fate

2010-01-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

Let the heavens fall, let the tides of the sea engulf her, what can it matter, she has had her fill.

-Victor Hugo

Les Miserables

jean valjean

2009-12-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Jean Valjean wept for a long time, and sobbed with more weakness than a woman, more terror than a child. While he wept, the light grew brighter in his brain, an extraordinary light, at once ravishing and terrible.

...

He looked at his life, and it appeared to him horrible; at his soul, and it appeared to him frightful. Still a soft light was shed over both, and he fancied that he saw Satan by the light of paradise.

-Victor Hugo

Les Misérables

blind dogs

2009-12-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. the crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

....

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.

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On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

....

In that cold corridor they had reached the point of no return which was measured from the first solely by the light they carried with them.

....

I want to be with you.
You cant.
Please.
You cant. You have to carry the fire.
I dont know how to.
Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.

-Cormac McCarthy
The Road

boxes

2009-12-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

"He made the boxes because he was lonely. He didn't have anyone to love, and he made the boxes so he could love them, and so people would know that he existed, and because birds are free and the boxes are hiding places for the birds so they will feel safe, and he wanted to be free and be safe. The boxes are for him so he can be a bird."

-Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife

Alone

2009-11-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

You cannot fully read a book without being alone. But through this very solitude you become intimately involved with people whom you might never have met otherwise, because they have been dead for centuries or because they spoke languages you cannot understand. And nonetheless, they have become your closest friends, your wisest advisors, the wizards that hypnotize you, the lovers you have always dreamed of.

~Antonio Munoz Molinas, "The Power of the Pen"

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Time

2009-11-29T15:53:00.001-08:00

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight....What sis Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like, it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping sown upon hollow box-lids, and rain.

~Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

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Asleep

2009-11-29T15:48:00.001-08:00

The soul is silent.
If it speaks at all
it speaks in dreams.

~Louise Gluck, "Child Crying Out"

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2009-11-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

He sits down on a hill and sings. They are songs of magic, strong enoughto wake the dead to life. Softly, cautiously, his song rises, then it grows louder and more insistent, until the turf opens up and the cold earth cracks.

~Tor Age Bringsvaerd, The Wild Gods

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Fate

2009-11-29T15:38:00.001-08:00

Does the walker choose the path or the path the walker?

~Garth Nix, Sabriel

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Alive

2009-11-29T15:31:00.001-08:00

The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

~Graham Greene, Advice to Writers

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Finding Yourself

2009-11-29T15:26:00.001-08:00

And leafing through old books we sometimes find
A dark, oracular phrase is underlined.
You once were here, but in time out of mind.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, "Improvisations of the Caprisian Winter"

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Clean

2009-11-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

So far as he was concerned, as yet, there might never have been such a thing as a particle of sorrow on the gay, sweet surface of the dew-glittering earth.

~T.H. White, The Once and Future King

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Worlds

2009-11-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found it?
You'll know it by the row of stars
Around its forehead bound.

A rich man might not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sire, for me!

~Emily Dickinson, Number 181, Collected Poems

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Mortality

2009-11-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
There was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of like,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

~Billy Collins, "On Turning Ten"

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The Highwayman

2009-11-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding,
The highwayman came riding up to the old inn door.

~Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman"

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2009-11-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hark, the footsteps of the night
Fade in silence long.
Quiet chirps my reading light
Like a cricket's song.

Books inviting us to read
On the bookshelves stand.
Piers for bridges that will lead
Into fairyland.

~Ranier Maria Rilke, "Vigels III," from Sacrifice to the Lares

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I Am...

2009-11-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

I am the song that sings the bird.
I am the leaf that grows the land.
I am the tide that moves the moon.
I am the stream that halts the sand.
I am the cloud that drives the storm.
I am the earth that lights the sun.
I am the fire that strikes the stone.
I am the clay that shapes the hand.
I am the word that speaks the man.

~Charles Causley, "I Am the Song"

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2009-11-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

Yet Bastien knew he couldn't leave without the book. It was clear to him that he had only come to the shop because of this book. It had called to him in some mysterious way, because it wanted to be his, because it had somehow always belonged to him.

~Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

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2009-11-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

In books I meet the dead as if they were alive,
in books I see what is yet to come...
All things decay and pass with time...
all fame would fall victim to oblivion
if God had not given mortal men the book to aid them.

~Richard de Bury, The Philobiblon

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2009-11-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in faeries.

~J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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For the good of all

2009-11-28T15:34:00.001-08:00

"If I were to be made a knight," said Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should....pray to God to let me encounter all teh evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it."

"That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlin, "and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it."

T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone

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Adventures

2009-11-28T15:28:00.000-08:00

She spoke to the King, hoping he would forbid his son to go, but he said: "Well, dear, it's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get into a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them."

~Eva Ibbotson, The Secret of Platform 13

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2009-11-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

My library was dukedom large enough.

~Shakespeare, The Tempest

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Summer Nights

2009-11-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you how to see that ship.

~Roberto Cotroneo, When a Child on a Summer Morning

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Edible

2009-11-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

Some books should be tasted
some devoured,
but only a few
should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

~Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

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2009-11-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

~Neil Gaiman

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i carry your heart with me

2009-11-27T20:29:00.000-08:00

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

~e.e. cummings

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2009-11-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

It always ends. That's what gives it value.

~Neil Gaiman

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Birdwings

2009-11-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

-Rumi

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Theatre

2009-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

For one day, when Miss Ophelia had driven into a snowstorm in her car and was stuck, she suddenly saw a vast shadow looming up in front of her, a shadow much darker than all the rest.

>>Are you another shadow that nobody wants?<< she asked.

>>Yes,<< said the shadow slowly, >>I think you could say so.<<

>>Do you want to come and stay with me too?<< asked Miss Ophelia.

>>Would you take me in?<< asked the great shadow, coming closer.

>>Well, I do have more than enough shadows already,<< said the little old lady, >>but you must have some place to go.<<

>>Don't you want to know my name first?<< asked the shadow.

>>What is it, then?<<

>>They call me Death.<<

Then there was silence for quite a long time.

>>Will you take me in?<< asked the shadow at last, gently.

>>Yes,<< said Miss Ophelia, >>come along.<<

Then the great, cold shadow wrapped itself around her, and the whole world went dark. But suddenly she felt as if she were opening a brand-new pair of eyes, eyes that were young and clear, not old and short-sighted any more. And she didn't need glasses now to see where she was.

She was standing at the gates of Heaven, and around her stood a throng of beautiful figures in bright clothes, smiling at her.

>>Who are you all?<< asked Miss Ophelia.

>>Don't you know us?<< they said. >>We're all the shadows you took in. We are free now; we needn't wander any more.<<

Then the gates of Heaven opened, and the bright figures went in, taking little old Miss Ophelia with them. They led her to what looked like a wonderful palace, though it was really the finest and most magnificent theatre ever seen.

Above the entrance there were big gold letters, saying:

OPHELIA'S THEATRE OF LIGHT

So ever since, Miss Ophelia's shadows have been acting tales of the fortunes of mankind for the angels in the beautiful language of the poets, for the angels know that language too, and it tells them how wretched yet wonderful, how sad yet comical it is to be human and live on Earth.

Miss Ophelia whispers her actors the words of their parts, in case they get stuck. And some say that the Lord God himself sometimes comes to watch the plays. But nobody knows for sure.

-Michael Ende

Ophelia's Shadow Theatre

Menagerie

2009-11-15T22:56:00.000-08:00

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

-Rumi

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Stars

2009-11-12T12:31:00.000-08:00

"And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars."

~Dante's Inferno

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Hill-haunted

2009-11-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

"Hill-haunted, whose vision of the earth was mountainwalled, he saw the golden cities sicken in his eye, the opulent dark splendors turn to dingy grey. His brain was sick with the million pictures his body sickened on a hundred princely wines."

~Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

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Neverland

2009-10-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

"On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

-Peter Pan

Sir James Matthew Barrie

We Are.

2009-10-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

we are the music makers,
we are the dreamers of the dream.
wandering by lone sea breakers,
and sitting by desolate streams.
world losers and world forsakers,
for whom the pale moon gleams.
yet we are movers and shakers of the world
forever it seems.

~Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Starlight

2009-10-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

"Stars flashed to like in some too-close distance. They burned her up for a few brief heartbeats."

~Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange

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Mended

2009-10-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

"-Sometimes I fear--What will the Bishop say when he hears? One of his priests?

-What can a Bishop say? Something is happening that no Bishop can stop. Who can stop these things from happening? They must go on.

-How can you say so? How can you say they must go on?

-They must go on, said Msimangu gravely. You cannot stop the world from going on. My friend, I am a Christian. It is not in my heart to hate a white man. It was a white man who brought my father out of darkness. But you will pardon me if I talk frankly to you. The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again. The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief--and again I ask your pardon--that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things. That is why children break the law, and old white people are robbed and beaten.

He passed his hand across his brow.

-It suited white man to break the tribe, he continued gravely. But it has not suited him to build something in the place of what is broken. I have pondered this for many hours, and I must speak it, for it is the truth for me. They are not all so. There are some white men who give their lives to build what is broken.

-But they are not enough, he said. They are afraid, that is the truth. It is fear that rules this land."

-Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

Eyes

2009-10-19T11:56:00.001-07:00

"Happy the eyes that can close."

-Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

Grass

2009-10-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

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"The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed."

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"Where you stand the grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. But the rich green hills break down. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it. Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept, or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men. The titihoya does not cry here any more."

"The great red hills stand desolate, and the earth has torn away like flesh. The lightning flashes over them, the clouds pour down upon them, the dead streams come to life, full of the red blood of the earth. Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The man are away, the young men and the girls are away. The soil cannot keep them any more."

-Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

Hills

2009-10-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

"There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.

These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it."

-Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

Enmity

2009-09-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Despite the enmity that has often divided them, Islam and the West have common roots and share much of their history. Their confrontation today arises not from essential differences, but from a long and willful determination to deny their kinship.

-Richard Bulliet

-Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization

Choice

2009-08-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—’Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

~John Steinbeck, East of Eden

.Michaelangelo, Creation of Adam, detail from the Sistine Chapel

2009-08-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

~June Jordan, "Poem for South African Women" Passion: New Poems 1977-1980

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2009-08-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

But I love you, sir;
And when a woman says she loves a man,
The man must hear her, though he love her not.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

J.W. Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott

2009-08-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Some friendships are made by nature, some by contact, some by interest, and some by souls.

~Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship

Princess

2009-08-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

"Once there was a princess who was very beautiful. She shone as bright as the stars on a moonless night. But what difference did it make that she was beautiful? None. No difference."

"Why did it make no difference?" asked Abilene.

"Because," said Pellegrina, "she was a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her."

At this point in her story, Pellegrina stopped and looked right at Edward. She stared deep into his painted-on eyes, and again, Edward felt a shiver go through him.

"And so," said Pellegrina, still staring at Edward.

"What happened to the princess?" asked Abilene.

"And so," said Pellegrina, turning back to Abilene, "the king, her father, said that the princess must marry; and soon after this, a prince came from a neighboring kingdom and he saw the princess and, immediately, he loved her. He gave her a ring of pure gold. He placed it on her finger. He said these words to her: 'I love you.' But do you know what the princess did?"

Abilene shook her head.

"She swallowed the ring. She took it from her finger and swallowed it. She said, 'That is what I think of love.' And she ran from the prince. She left the castle and went deep into the woods. And so."

"And so what?" said Abilene. "What happened then?"

"And so, the princess became lost in the woods. She wandered for many day. Finally, she came to a little hut, and she knocked on the door. She said, 'Let me in; I am cold.'

"There was no answer.

She knocked again, 'Let me in; I am hungry,'

"A terrible voice answered her. The voice said, 'Enter if you must.'

"The beautiful princess entered, and she saw a witch sitting at the table counting pieces of gold.

"'Three thousand six hundred and twenty-two.' said the witch.

"'I am lost.' said the beautiful princess.

"'What of it?' said the witch. 'Three thousand six hundred and twenty-three.'

"'I am hungry,' said the princess.

"' Not my concern,' said the witch. 'Three thousand six hundred and twenty-four.'

"'But I am a beautiful princess.' said the princess.

"'Three thousand six hundred and twenty-five,' replied the witch.

"'My father,' said the princess, 'is a powerful king. You must help me or there will be consequences.'

"'Consequences?' said the witch. She looked up from her gold. She stared at the princess. 'You dare to talk to me of consequences? Very well, then, we will speak of consequences: tell me the name of the one you love.'

"'Love!' said the princess. She stamped her foot. 'Why must everyone speak of love?'

"'Whom do you love?' said the witch. 'You must tell me the name.'

"'I love no one,' said the princess proudly.

"'You disappoint me,' said the witch. She raised her hand and said one word: 'Farthfigery.'

"And the beautiful princess was changed into a warthog.

"'What have you done to me?' squealed the princess.

"'Talk to me of consequences now, will you?' said the witch, and she went back to counting her pieces of gold. 'Three thousand six hundred and twenty-six,' said the witch as the warthog princess ran from the hut and out again into the forest.

"The kings' men were in the forest, too. And what were they looking for? A beautiful princess. And so when they came upon an ugly warthog, they shot it immediately. Pow!"

"No," said Abilene.

"Yes," said Pellegrina. "The men took the warthog back to the castle and the cook slit open its belly and inside it she found a ring of pure gold. There were many hungry people in the castle that night and all of them were waiting to be fed. So the cook put the ring on her finger and finished butchering the warthog. And the ring that the beautiful princess had swallowed shone on the cook's hand as she did her work. The end."

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter IV, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

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Lost.

2009-08-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

Lost On Sunday

A few hours ago

I awakened to a nearly extinguished morning and,

scowling at the prospect of another day, left

my bed to its thoughts to prepare for the barrage

of happiness that would fill my evening.

The world was determined

to extract me from the melancholy afternoon,

strewing unexpected pleasantries in my path

that I, unable to transfer the joy from my mind

to my heart,

simply took as coincidences bereft of forethought.

I rested a few moments in a silent location,

debating the sun's warmth

and reasoning with a chilly wind, asking myself

genuine questions; when two swallows,

hopping across the path I had taken, looked my way,

pretended to acknowledge my hurt, paired

off and flew away.

-Calvin Olsen

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Pointless.

2009-08-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

The old doll said, "I wonder who will come for me this time. Someone will come. Someone always comes. Who will it be?"

"I don't care if anyone comes for me," said Edward.

"But that's dreadful," said the old doll. "There's no point in going on if you feel that way. No point at all. You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next."

"I am done with being loved," Edward told her. "I'm done with loving. It's too painful."

"Pish," said the old doll. "Where is your courage?"

"Somewhere else, I guess," said Edward.

"You disappoint me," she said. "You disappoint me greatly. If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless. You might as well leap from this shelf right now and let yourself shatter into a million pieces. Get it over with. Get it all over with now."

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XXVI, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

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Owned.

2009-08-04T21:50:00.001-07:00

"I have no interest in being purchased," said Edward.

The doll gasped. "You don't want somebody to buy you?" she said. "You don't want to be owned by a little girl who loves you?"

Sarah Ruth! Abilene! Their names went through Edward's head like the notes of a sad, sweet song.

"I have already been loved," said Edward. "I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died. Don't talk to me about love," he said.

"I have known love."

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XXVI, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

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Broken.

2009-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it's a terrible thing. I'm broken. My heart is broken. Help me.

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XX, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

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Empty

2009-08-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
unto itself--'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."

~Thomas Brown
in Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light

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2009-08-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

God is over all things; under all things; outside all; within, but not enclosed; without, but not excluded; above but not raised up; below, but not depressed; wholly above, presiding; wholly without, embracing; wholly within, filling.

~Hildevert of Lavardin, 1125

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Spices

2009-08-04T13:23:00.001-07:00

Faber sniffed the book. "Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy."

~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

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Owls

2009-08-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

"Let him alone," said Merlin. "Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come and easy-go."

~T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone

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Home

2009-08-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafting through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way.

~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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Of Mice and Men

2009-08-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

"My darling," she said at last, "are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"

"I don't mind at all," I said. "It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you."

~Roald Dahl, The Witches

.via Google Images

2009-08-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

"What do these children do without storybooks?" Naftali asked.

And Reb Zebulun replied: "They have to make do. Storybooks aren't bread. You can live without them."

"I couldn't live without them," Naftali said.

~Isaac Bashevis Singer, Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus

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Baby.

2009-08-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XVII, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Stars.

2009-08-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

Finally, the sun set and the birds flew away. Edward hung by his ears and looked up at the night sky. He saw the stars. But for the first time in his life, he looked at them and felt no comfort. Instead, he felt mocked.

You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.

I have been loved, Edward told the stars.

So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?

Edward could think of no answer to that question.

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XV, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Goodbye.

2009-08-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Edward looked up at the stars. He started to say the names of the constellations, but then he stopped.

"Bull," his heart said. "Lucy."

How many times, Edward wondered, would he have to leave without getting the chance to say goodbye?

A lone cricket started up a song.

Edward listened.

Something deep inside him ached.

He wished that he could cry.

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XIV, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Names.

2009-08-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter XIV, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Nellie.

2009-08-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

"He drowned inside of himself," said Nellie. "it is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it. I dream about him most nights."

-Kate DiCamillo

Chapter IX, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Hwin.

2009-08-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh and trotted across to the Lion.

"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you, than fed by anyone else."

"Dearest daughter," said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, "I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours."

-C. S. Lewis

Chapter XIV, The Horse and His Boy

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Giant.

2009-08-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.

"One who has waited long for you to speak," said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.

"Are you---are you a giant?" asked Shasta.

"You might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "But I am not like the creatures you call giants."

"I can't see you at all," said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "You're not---not something dead, are you? Oh please---please do go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world!"

Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows."

Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.

"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.

"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta.

"There was only one lion," said the Voice.

"What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night, and---"

"There was only one: but he was swift of foot."

"How do you know?"

"I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"

"It was I."

"But what for?"

"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."

"Who are you?" asked Shasta.

"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself," loud and clear and gay: and then the third time "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.

The mist was turning from black to gray and from gray to white. This must have begun to happen some time ago, but while he had been talking to the Thing he had not been noticing anything else. Now, the whiteness around him became a shining whiteness; his eyes began to blink. Somewhere ahead he could hear birds singing. He knew the night was over at last. He could see the mane and ears and head of his horse quite easily now. A golden light fell on them from the left. He thought it was the sun.

He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. The horse did not seem to be afraid of it or else could not see it. It was from the Lion that the light came. No one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful.

Luckily Shasta had lived all his life too far south in Calormen to have heard the tales that were whispered in Tashbaan about a dreadful Narnian demon that appeared in the form of a lion. And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia. But after on glance at the Lion's face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He could say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything.

The High King above all kings stooped toward him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the mist and the fiery brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing.

-C. S. Lewis

Chapter XI, The Horse and His Boy

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Hermit.

2009-08-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

"It's all very well for you," said Bree. "You haven't disgraced yourself. But I've lost everything."

"My good Horse," said the Hermit who had approached them unnoticed because his bare feet made so little noise on that sweet, dewy grass. "My good Horse, you've lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. don't put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you're nobody very special , you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another. And now, if you and my other four-footed cousin will come round to the kitchen door we'll see about the other half of that mash."

-C. S. Lewis

Chapter X, The Horse and His Boy

Luck.

2009-08-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

"I say!" said Aravis. "I have had luck."

"Daughter," said the Hermit. "I have now lived a hundred and nine winters in this world and have never yet met any such thing as Luck. There is something about all this that I do not understand: but if ever we need to know it, you may be sure that we shall."

-C. S. Lewis

Chapter X, The Horse and His Boy

Shasta.

2009-08-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

Shasta's heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. But all he said out loud was:

"Where is the King?"

-C. S. Lewis

Chapter X, The Horse and His Boy

2009-08-03T15:18:00.001-07:00

Believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there's a light hidden at the heart of things.

~Clive Barker, Abarat

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Dinnerware

2009-08-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

The mustard-pot got up and walked over to his plate on thin silver legs that waddled like the owl's...."Oh, I love the mustard pot!" cried the Wart. "Wherever did you get it?"

~T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone

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My Father

2009-08-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

The memory of my father is wrapped up in
White paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
Out of his hat, he drew love from his small body.

~Yehuda Amichai, "My Father," Isibongo

2009-08-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any courser like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

~Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson

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Writing

2009-08-03T13:19:00.001-07:00

All I need is a sheet of paper
and something to write with, and then
I can turn the world upside down.

~Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Weiss und die Schwarze Kunst

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2009-08-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

The lofty bookshelves sag
Under thousands of sleeping souls
Silence, hopeful--
Every time I open a book, a soul is awakened.

~Xi Chuan, "Books," New Generations

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Time

2009-08-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse
Without a rider on a road at night.
The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

~Wallace Stevens, "The Pure Good of Theory"

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Darkness

2009-08-03T12:59:00.001-07:00

Sunrise Angkor Wat - Panorama Angkor
Originally uploaded by hk_traveller

Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It's only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes--if necessary--brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.

~Clive Barker, Abarat

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2009-08-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

I do not dare,
I do not dare write it,
if you die.

~Pablo Neruda, "The Dead Woman," The Captain's Verses

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Heart

2009-08-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

"You people with hearts," he once said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful."

~L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz

Gone

2009-08-03T08:37:00.001-07:00

I woke up and knew he was gone. Straightaway I knew he was gone. When you love somebody you know these things.

~David Almond, Skellig

Never-Land

2009-08-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.

~J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Stories

2009-08-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

"Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves."All books continue into the beyond..."

~Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Thoughts

2009-08-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

The idea hovered and shivered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly, in case it burst. But she was familiar with the ways of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.

~Philip Pullman, Northern Lights

2009-08-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

Was there only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of others?
~Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife

2009-08-03T07:51:00.001-07:00

Perseids Meteor Over the North Cascades
Originally uploaded by Fort Photo

"What is this?" said the Leopard, "that is so 'sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?"
~Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories

2009-08-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

He has been trying to sing
Love into existence again
And he has failed.
~Margaret Atwood
"Orpheus 2", Eating Fire

Floptop.

2009-08-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

Deep in a tropical forest there once lived a funny looking little creature named Floptop. Actually, he wasn't called anything while he lived in his tropical forest. Hew was named Floptop later, when he left the forest and met humans. It's only people who give names to animals. It's people who told the elephant that he was an elephant, the giraffe that she was a giraffe, and the rabbits that they were rabbits. And so the little creature never gave a thought to what he was called, he just lived, and he lived in a faraway tropical forest.

-Edward Upensky

-Chapter I, Crocodile Gene and his friends

The Door.

2009-08-03T00:26:00.000-07:00

"Dalet (ד) is the door, דלת, (delet). Very few people know that they know about the Dalet. Even fewer open it, for they are afraid to go inside. "

-Lawrence Kushner

-The Book of Letters, a Mystical Alef-bait

Wizard Moon.

2009-08-02T22:45:00.001-07:00

Egan stood uncertainly in the mist. The rain was easing off. There had been no sound from the Megrimum for many minutes now. A mumble of thunder complained from far away and then the clouds parted and the moon rode free. Instantly the mist was luminous, and Egan, with a gasp, felt as if he had suddenly been tucked inside a bubble. Looking up, he saw the moon as a shapeless radiance, like a candle seen through steamy glass. Each drop of moisture in the mist had become a tiny prism, filtering and fanning the dim light into a million pale rainbow of softest color. From a shrouded treetop nearby came the soft, clear notes of a bird's call and, with the faintest of rustles, a small red kneeknock bird floated through the mist ahead of him. Egan held his breath and stared at the magic world around him, a nighttime world bewitched into seeming morning by the wizard moon.

-Natalie Babbit

-Kneeknock Rise

Here am I.

2009-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

While everyone can say, "I am present", only a very few can say, הנני, "Here am I". For to answer הנני means that you no longer belong only to yourself. To answer הנני means that you gave the Hay, ה, of your being over to the One who calls. That is why Hay is the letter most often linked with G-d's name.

-Lawrence Kushner

-The Book of Letters, a Mystical Alef-bait

.image here, it says 'Elohim' which is the plural form of God. Hay is the middle letter of the word.