Hauntingly beautiful quotes

[FreeGold]

Wherever you go, there you are.

 

[HenryFlower]

A chrysalis heart formed on the water’s surface, away from the hard-polished pebbles, sand-blowing and elongated shadows [...] Be given to, the sliding of water, to forget, be forgotten; premature thoughts – predetermined action. In a moment fixed between one wave and the next, the outline of what might be ahead. On your back, staring into space, becoming part of the sky, a speckled bird’s breast that opened at the slightest notion on your part. But the hands, remember the hands that pulled your legs, that doubled you up, and dragged you down? Surprised at non-resistance. Voices that called, creating confusion. Cells tighter than shells, you spinning into spirals, quick-silver, thrashing the water, making stars scatter. Narcissus above, staring at a shadow-bat spreading out, finally disappearing into the very centre of the ocean. They were always there waiting by the edge, behind them the cliffs extended. Your head disembodied, bouncing above the separate force of arms and legs, rhythmical, the glorious sensation of weightlessness, moon-controlled, and far below your heart went in exploring, no matter how many years came between, nor how many people were thrust into focus. (Berg, 140-141)

Quin wrote this premonitory passage in her novel Berg at least 10 years prior to her eventual suicide by drowning in 1973. her suicide was committed in the shores of the seaside town of Brighton, Sussex, which was also the setting of the novel.

 

[Holic]

"It's a special kind of hate, he told himself, when they don't mind letting you live just so long as you go away forever, so they can pretend you never existed; so they can cut you out of memory, like a child making dolls from folded paper." - KJ Parker, Memory

 

[MC Paul Barman]

From Mr. Flood's Party:

There was not much that was ahead of him/
And there was nothing in the town below.../
Where strangers would have shut the many doors/
That many friends had opened long ago/

 

[Canuck]

 

[HARRISON_3]

"Visualize: this is not a bunch of sticks and pipes anymore; this is not some pathetic mugger who needs a couple of dollars so he can eat. No! This is a deadly, hungry wrecking machine who wants to detatch your head from the rest of your body and mount it over his fireplace!"

-Terry Silver

 

[RogerB08]

"Work is the curse of the drinking Class."--Oscar Wilde

 

[DiarrheaPerlmans]

Sophie Scholl - German Anti-Nazi resistance fighter's last words before she was executed.

"How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause.... It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt"

 

[Brazilian HKD]

CS Lewis on his wife dying:

A Grief Observed and Till We Have Faces are haunting, yet beautiful. People tend to dismiss them because of the author's religion, but dude, he had some stuff to say about suffering.

 

[Tone C]

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

 

[MC Paul Barman]

A Grief Observed and Till We Have Faces are haunting, yet beautiful. People tend to dismiss them because of the author's religion, but dude, he had some stuff to say about suffering.

I love Till We Have Faces. I need to read Grief Observed entirely

 

[Brazilian HKD]

I love Till We Have Faces. I need to read Grief Observed entirely

That book was written four years after Till We Have Faces.

it’s heavier, and sometime brutal. But worth it. Even TS Elliot pushed for the book to be published

 

[SuperHoss]

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”

― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

 

[SuperHoss]

the sun shining down on these green fields of france
the warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
the trenches have vanished long under the plow
no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing down
but here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
to man's blind indifference to his fellow man
and a whole generation that were butchered and damned

-Erik Bogle, No Man's Land aka Green Fields of France referencing a huge graveyard in France of young men who died fighting in WWI from all over Europe

 

[MC Paul Barman]

That book was written four years after Till We Have Faces.

it’s heavier, and sometime brutal. But worth it. Even TS Elliot pushed for the book to be published

Ever read any GK Chesterton?
Orthodoxy was great. Small book… but the way he crafts a thought onto page - it’s impressive.

Tried reading The Everlasting Man, but it was a bit too arcane for me. I need a bit more background before trying that one again.

 

[HHJ]

"Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me, huh? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!"

I heard that and it made me cry a little

It would be nice to actually tell us who is speaking

 

[HHJ]

" I'm 87 years old...I only eat so I can smoke and stay alive.. The only fear I have is how long consciousness is gonna hang on after my body goes. I just hope there's nothing. Like there was before I was born. I'm not really into religion, they're all macrocosms of the ego. When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.

The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.

Anybody else you've interviewed bring these things up? Hang on, I gotta take this call..... Hey, brother. That's great, man. Yeah, I'm being interviewed... We're talking about nothing. I've got him well-steeped in nothing right now. He's stopped asking questions."

~ HARRY DEAN STANTON July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017

 

[Slobodan]

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

 

[Brazilian HKD]

Ever read any GK Chesterton?
Orthodoxy was great. Small book… but the way he crafts a thought onto page - it’s impressive.

Tried reading The Everlasting Man, but it was a bit too arcane for me. I need a bit more background before trying that one again.

just read orthodoxy. That was really good.

 

[Brazilian HKD]

The death of a beloved one is an amputation.

CS Lewis. A Grief Observed.