Happiness now sometimes meant turning away from what one remembered of earlier, better happiness.
I never use the words “humanist” or “humanitarian”, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.
Always you were drawn to the composite creatures, the broken and reassembled, for that is what you are.
It seems there is no shortage of regret among the young – but then, they are young, they make mistakes. They have time to correct them and the courage to admit their failings aloud.
Every child makes its peace with abandonment. That’s called growing up.
What’s missing from the literature of our species are the stories of the peasants. The filthy illiterate. Those with no firm address, no surname. No one to impress, nothing to lose. But the poor tell stories, too.
Furniture!” bellowed the witch. “Tables, bathtub, the lot of you. It’s time to go out in the world and seek your fortunes, if that’s your hope.” There was a crashing sound as all the furniture went and tried to hide under the bed, and the bed tried to hide under itself.
You know our Alice. She plays hide-and-seek but sometimes forgets to ask someone to look for her.
Marmalade has to make its own way in life, like the rest of us, she thought.
Not old enough to feel like an adult, really, but old enough to look like one, and to know the distinction between being carefree and careless.
No doubt Noah offered his wife that olive branch. Forty days in a boat with those animals to clean up after? A peace offering likely all that stood between their marriage and bloody murder.
Ravens aren’t usually nocturnal, but hunger can be.
That’s the beginning of heroism, the decision to try.
She found her regard for Mr. Winter turning to something like suspicion – though notice how often we lower suspicion upon others to avoid putting ourselves under scrutiny. Now.
She added, perhaps to herself, “You have to become old and ugly before anyone listens to you, and then they don’t, because you’re ugly and old.
As for dreams, they are powered by urgent desire, even if that desire is only to escape the quotidian.
Gossip is instructive,” said the Wizard. “It tells which way the wind is blowing.
Chopin’s theme, a simple descending descant the first time round, articulated itself in the repeat with nuanced embellishment. It was music remembering itself. It meant something different, something more, to hear those simple phrases repeated so soon, qualified by chromatic variations. Clarifications. Not redundancy, but a hypothesis about how consolation works. A second chance at getting it. A second chance at life.
What a mystery we are to ourselves, even as we go on, learning more, sorting it out a little. The further on we go, the more meaning there is, but the less articulable. You live your life, and the older you get – the more specificity you harvest – the more precious becomes every ounce and spasm.
I just like to think about what I’m reading. Don’t you?” “I don’t read very well. So I don’t think I think very well either.” Galinda smiled. “I dress to kill, though.