“There are sights too beautiful to swallow. They stay on the rim of the eye; it cannot contain them.”
– Olivia Laing, To the River.
Category: words
“—and he felt the unmoving gaze of strange stars on his back—”
“—and he felt the unmoving gaze of strange stars on his back—”
– Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea.
“On the way a wonder; water became bone.”
“On the way a wonder; water became bone.”
– Fragment from the Exeter Book.
“There, I have just brushed ten millions other worlds, and they knew nothing of it. We are as close…”
“There, I have just brushed ten millions other worlds, and they knew nothing of it. We are as close as a heartbeat, but we can never touch or see or hear these other worlds—”
– Philip Pullman, Northern Lights.
“Ice breathes. Rock has tides. Mountains ebb and flow. Stone pulses. We live on a restless Earth.”
“Ice breathes. Rock has tides. Mountains ebb and flow. Stone pulses. We live on a restless Earth.”
– Robert Macfarlane, Underland.
“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but…”
“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.”
– Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight.
“Through many patterns of stars, they all spoke to one another, the wind to the hawk, the snail to…”
“Through many patterns of stars, they all spoke to one another, the wind to the hawk, the snail to the stone, the frog to the reeds.”
– Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl.
“—and [he] sat in the firelight hearing the autumn wind fingering at the thatch rood and whining in…”
“—and [he] sat in the firelight hearing the autumn wind fingering at the thatch rood and whining in the great bare trees above; and he pondered long.”
– Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea.
“You do not write your life with words … You write it with actions. What you think is not important….”
“You do not write your life with words … You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”
– Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls.
The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
– R.S. Thomas.