--William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
Surely there is something in madness, even the demoniac, which Satan flees, aghast at his own handiwork, and which God looks on in pity...
--William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can.
--William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
--William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying Caddy smelled like trees and like when she says we were asleep.
--William Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
--William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus I am more convinced and determined than ever that this is not for me. I will protest to the last: no photographs, no recorded documents. It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books; I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago, and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them. It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died.
--William Faulkner, Selected Letters Of William Faulkner Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
--William Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.
--Marilynne Robinson, Gilead But see that you get on. That's your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on. --Stephen King, The Shining Actually that’s my secret — I can’t even talk about you to anybody because I don’t want any more people to know how wonderful you are. --F.Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is The NIght Did you ever have a sister? did you? --William Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury What could a child know of the darkness of God's plan? Or how flesh is so frail it is hardly more than a dream? --Cormac McCarthy, Suttree Actually, orcas aren't quite as complex as scientists imagine. Most killer whales are just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car. --Christopher Moore, Fluke: Or, I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings I wanted to tell you that I was so sad I felt as if I might be happy, or in love, simply because such powerful feelings can appear the same to the naive. I was mighty with grief, and I thought I should be empowered by it. I thought my hands should shine with a yellow light, and that should I reach out to touch our mother on the head, I would call her back from the place she'd gone.
--Chris Adrian, Gob's Grief Wonder. Go on and wonder. --William Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen. --Louisa May Alcott, Little Women This is man, who, if he can remember ten golden moments of joy and happiness out of all his years, ten moments unmarked by care, unseamed by aches or itches, has power to lift himself with his expiring breath and say: "I have lived upon this earth and known glory!" --Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again Music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide. --Pat Conroy, Beach Music You're the man who stands on the street corner with a roll of toilet paper, and written on each square are the words, 'I love you.' And each passer-by, no matter who, gets a square all his or her own. I don't want my square of toilet paper.' I didn't realize it was toilet paper. --Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing.
--Cormac McCarthy, Cities Of The Plain Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace. --Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Mt. Everest Disaster How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant: echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-strings: in sunset we fall into furious attitudes, dead gestures of dolls. --William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying They are asleep. This is the condition they prefer. They are afraid of the world and sleep is a way of dealing with their fear. Someday they will wake. Perhaps something frightful will happen. Indeed, there is no better invitation to the frightful than ignorance - that is, sleep. --Stephen Dobyns, The Church Of Dead Girls I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world. --Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn. --Donna Tartt, The Secret History |
Alissa B.Nothing commonplace about The Common Place. Archives
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