Alissa Butterworth
  • About
  • Writing
  • The Common Place
  • The Home Writer's Retreat
  • Contact
  • HWR Non-Required Reading
  • Links

for Friday

5/16/2014

 
There is, then, a world immune from change. But I am not composed enough, standing on tiptoe on the verge of fire, still scorched by the hot breath, afraid of the door opening and the leap of the tiger, to make even one sentence. What I say is perpetually contradicted. Each time the door opens I am interrupted. I am not yet twenty-one. I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens. I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room.
--Virginia Woolf, The Waves

I think it was this: like most of us, he was carrying a misery in his soul. I don't say it to forgive what he done, only to say it as true as I can. He was a wrong-minded man, but inside- I swear this is true- he was always that little boy eating that fried-egg sandwich in that dark hallway while the steam pipe dripped water on his head. I don't ask you to excuse him, only to understand that there's people who don't have what others do, and sometimes they get hurtful in their hearts, and they puff themselves up and try all sorts of schemes to level the ground- to get the bricks and joints all plumb, Ray used to say. They take wrong turns, hit dead ends, and sometimes they never make their way back.
--Lee Martin, The Bright Forever

This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
--William Shakespeare, King Lear

Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.
--Arthur Miller, The Crucible

Whereas my grandfather was getting used to a much more terrifying reality. Holding my hand to keep his balance, as trees and bushes made strange, sliding movements in his peripheral vision, Lefty was confronting the possibility that consciousness was a biological accident. Though he'd never been religious, he realized now that he'd always believed in the soul, in a force of personality that survived death. But as his mind continued to waver, to short-circuit, he finally arrived at the cold-eyed conclusion, so at odds with his youthful cheerfulness, that the brain was just an organ like any other and that when it failed he would be no more.
--Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
--Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.
--Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Comments are closed.

    Alissa B.

    Nothing commonplace about The Common Place.

    Archives

    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2011

    Categories

    All
    A. E Housman
    Alan Paton
    Aldous Huxley
    Algernon Blackwood
    Alice Munro
    Alice Sebold
    Alice Walker
    Ann Brashares
    Anthony Doerr
    Anton Chekhov
    Arthur Golden
    Arthur Miller
    Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
    As I Lay Dying
    Audrey Niffenegger
    Betty Smith
    Blog
    Bob Hicok
    Carson McCullers
    Carsten Jensen
    Character
    Charles Portis
    Chris Adrian
    Christopher Moore
    Chuck Palahniuk
    Cormac McCarthy
    C. S. Lewis
    Daniel Woodrell
    Daphne Du Maurier
    Dave Eggers
    David McCullough
    Dodie Smith
    Donna Tartt
    Eimear McBride
    Erik Larson
    Evelyn Waugh
    Ford Madox Ford
    Frank McCourt
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    George Orwell
    Glen Duncan
    Harper Lee
    Hart Crane
    Henry David Thoreau
    Henry Roth
    Hilary Mantel
    Iain Banks
    Italo Calvino
    Jack Gilbert
    Jack Kerouac
    Jackson
    James Frey
    James Joyce
    Janet Malcolm
    Jason Mott
    J. D. Salinger
    Jeannette Walls
    Jeffrey Eugenides
    Jeff VanderMeer
    Jennifer Egan
    Jennifer Percy
    John Irving
    John Steinbeck
    Jonathan Franzen
    Jon Krakauer
    Jon McGregor
    Joseph Heller
    Jose Saramago
    Julia Alvarez
    Karen Russell
    Kate Atkinson
    Kathryn Stockett
    Kaui Hart Hemmings
    Ken Kesey
    Kevin Wilson
    Kurt Vonnegut
    Larry McMurtry
    Laura Ingalls Wilder
    Lee Martin
    Louisa May Alcott
    Lynda Barry
    Margaret Atwood
    Margaret Mitchell
    Marilynne Robinson
    Mark Haddon
    Mark Van Doren
    Michael Crummey
    Michael Cunningham
    Michael Ondaatje
    Mikal Gilmore
    Molly Caldwell Crosby
    Music
    Narrative
    Nathaniel Philbrick
    Neil Gaiman
    Neil Gaimen
    Nikos Kazantzakis
    Norman Mailer
    Novel
    Pat Conroy
    Paul Harding
    Perspective
    Philip Pullman
    Possession
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Ransom Riggs
    Ray Bradbury
    Raymond Chandler
    Richard Wright
    Rilke
    Robert Hicks
    Robert Penn Warren
    Ron Hansen
    Rumi
    Salman Rushdie
    Sherman Alexie
    Smith Henderson
    Soundtrack
    Stephen Crane
    Stephen Dobyns
    Stephen King
    Steven Naifeh
    Susanna Clarke
    Sylvia Plath
    Tennessee Williams
    Terri Pratchett
    Theme
    Theodore Dreiser
    Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Pynchon
    Thomas Wolfe
    T. H. White
    Tim O'Brien
    Tom Robbins
    Tom Stoppard
    Toni Morrison
    Truman Capote
    Virginia Woolf
    Vladimir Nabokov
    Walt Whitman
    William Blake
    William Faulkner
    William Golding
    William Shakespeare
    William Styron
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.