1801.-
I have just returned from a visit to my landlord-the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropists’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
-Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
“The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins learning. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.”
-Polly Berrien Berends
“To go further, a physical man is composed entirely from the constituents of earth and air, by which terms I include sunlight and water and ‘condiments!’ In other words without earth and air he could not BE! Or to put it another way, earth and air breed within themselves the materials of the body and the brain, and therefore, presumably, the machine of intelligence.”
-William Hope Hodgson, The Hog (1947)
excerpted from Jim Butcher’s Storm Front (2000)
“Tequila?” I asked him, skeptically. “Are you sure on that one? I thought the base for a love potion was supposed to be champagne.”
“Champagne, tequila, what’s the difference, so long as it’ll lower her inhibitions?” Bob said.
“Uh. I’m thinking it’s going to get us a, um, sleazier result.”
“Hey!” Bob protested. “Who’s the memory spirit here! Me or you?”
“Well-“
“Who’s got all the experience with women here? Me or you?”
“Bob-“
“Harry,” Bob lectured me, “I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren’t a twinkle in your great-grand-cestor’s eyes. I think I know what I’m doing.”
I sighed, too tired to argue with him. “Okay, okay. Sheesh. Tequila.” I got down the bottle, measure eight ounces into the beaker, and glanced up at the skull.
“Right. Now, three ounces of dark chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” I demanded.
“Chicks are into chocolate, Harry.”
I muttered, more interested in finishing than anything else, and measured out the ingredients. I did the same with a drop of perfume (some name-brand imitation that I liked), an ounce of shredded lance, and the last sigh at the bottom of the glass jar. I added some candlelight to the mix, and it took on a rosy golden glow.
Sonnet 130 - William Shakespeare - read by Alan Rickman - from When Love Speaks
The Fiddler and the Dogs
Hal Duncan
1
The man came from his caravan,
In barking of dogs. The strangers stood.
They said, we have to move you on
From what has been and what has gone.
The man replied, there’s nothing gone
But what you’ll lose not moving on.
They summoned writ: but move you will.
We’ve bricked a scheme for you, a dream
Of things made new by tick of tock.
We are the shepherds of the flock.
“Freedom is the moment between sleep and waking before selfhood and the world return.”
-Mason Cooley
“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched.”
-Albert Camus
But take my advice, you’ll have to bury me twice
Because the first time I won’t rest easily
But don’t let me die still wondering
What it was I left behind?I want a race well run, ahead of the gun
With a dance before the far finish line
So no life long regrets, only well feathered steps
Til these shoes I can no longer shineBut don’t let me die still wondering
For the love I left behind
