Month: October 2019

glumshoe: I think I’m always chasing that particular high you only get from certain rare stories -…

glumshoe:

I think I’m always chasing that particular high you only get from certain rare stories - the ones that resonate with you on a strange personal level, like an implacable aroma that reminds you of something that was once very dear to you but has somehow been forgotten. Those stories that rewire your brain just a little, just for a while. Not every great story has this effect - I have enjoyed many excellent books and movies that did not change me.

It’s just that now and then, if you’re very lucky, you’ll come across a story that feels like home, or a like limb you didn’t even know you had or how you got by all these years without using it. These stories haunt you and become part of your personal canon.

“What [the teachers] did sell was invisible things. And after they’d sold what they had, they still…”

“What [the teachers] did sell was invisible things. And after they’d sold what they had, they still had it. They sold what everyone needed but often didn’t want. They sold the key to the universe to people who didn’t even know it was locked.”

- Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men.

“Great darkness and constant, feeble light, the slow flowing of time from far beyond his conception…”

“Great darkness and constant, feeble light, the slow flowing of time from far beyond his conception to far beyond his power to follow, the solitude about him and the troubled and peopled world within, a steady rhythm as perfect as sleep. … He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding in his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands, all those people who were in stress or grief because of this little saint, for if he suffered like this for their sake, how much more must she feel for them?”

- Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones.