lit_citing (original) (raw)

I love how this is worded... [Apr. 5th, 2007|06:21 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Music |The Little Drummer Boy-Sufjan Stevens (no, I'm not ashamed.)]"the story ended, she couldn't tell the rest, they'd hate her, she wasn't any good shut up you bad bad girl ugly and you don't deserve any of this and the spell was broken and she ran home through a tangle of words where the letters jumbled and made no sense and meant nothing, and the words were ugly and she was not to be heard or seen, she was blemished and too fat, too thin, not smart, too smart, not good, not a storyteller, not a creator, not beautiful, not a woman not not not."~from The Rose and the Beast, story Glass, by Francesca Lia Block
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more from Jodi Picoult [Aug. 11th, 2006|11:21 am]Citing Literary Works
[Current Location |work] [Current Music Horrorpops You Vs. Me]Vanishing Acts[p. 82-83]It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it. The first lie my father must have told was to me -- that my mother had died in a car crash. But why didn't I ask, when I was old enough, to visit her grave? Why didn't I question the fact that I had no maternal grandparents or uncles or cousins who ever visited? Why didn't I ever look for my mother's jewelry, her old clothes, her high school yearbook? There were times when Eric was drinking that he'd come home, too careful in his movements to not be intoxicated. But instead of calling him on his bad judgment, I'd pretend everything was fine, just like he was doing. You can invent any fiction and call it a life; I thought that if I did it often enough, I might start to believe it. Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face. It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.
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(no subject) [Aug. 10th, 2006|05:23 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Location |work] [Current Music ani difranco gravel]I could tell her from personal experience that when people we love make choices, we don't always understand them. But we can go on loving them, just the same. It isn't a matter of comprehension. It's forgiveness.Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult[p. 60]
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(no subject) [Apr. 6th, 2006|09:16 pm]Citing Literary Works
This is by far, the most fascinating and interesting non-fiction book I have ever read. I haven't read too many non-fiction books though. It's a new genre for me lately.[...]Sharing a room with a cadaver is only mildly different from being in a room alone. They are the same sort of company as people across from you on subways or in airport lounges, there but not there. Your eyes keep going back to them, for lack of anything more interesting to look at, and then you feel bad for staring. Mary Roach; Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers, pg. 98
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(no subject) [Mar. 25th, 2006|02:19 pm]Citing Literary Works
"No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the uviverse. [...] Truth, goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All."--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature.
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(no subject) [Mar. 24th, 2006|06:00 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |thoughtfulthoughtful] [Current Music** Over the Moor to Maggie (celtic tune)]I just finished a book by Francesca Lia Block, called Wasteland. It was really good, a little confusing at times but really touching and there were some parts that I just fell in love with. One of them is a poem that wasn't written by her, but it is called Marina, and it's by T.S. Eliot.( I'll put it in a cut because it's kind of long.Collapse )
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Alchemy in books [Mar. 23rd, 2006|08:45 am]Citing Literary Works
Hi there, I am a first time poster in this community. The subject of alchemy intrigues me as a fundamental argument in mysteries. I've recently begun the book The chymical wedding and simply ignored the format of the author's use of quotation marks. I'm accustomed to reading books in which the characters verbalizing dialog is shown by containing the lines of spoken text between double quotation marks. However, in The chymical wedding, single quotes are used for this purpose. I assume this is done for the purpose of leaving open the double quotation marks symbol for when the characters in the book are quoted quoting text from a second book. What I'm asking with this convoluted intro is whether novels which don't see a need to contain quoted material within quoted (dialog) text in the book don't need to worry about saving double quotes for this purpose. It seems quoting a book for a story should be adequate with single quotes (the reverse of text format in The chymical wedding). Is there a rule in grammar techniques for using quotation marks, and does that rule differ for books printed in the UK? 'You mean that's it? That my feelings don't count?' There was an amused reproach in her glance as she pulled the straps over her shoulders. 'Do you really know what they are, Alex?'-Lindsay Clarke
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The Dark Tower VII : The Dark Tower [Nov. 15th, 2005|07:06 pm]Citing Literary Works
I've just finished book 7 of Stephen King's Dark Tower series.It's oh so very sad. I'm always a little sad whenever I finish a series. Especially this one. SEVEN books. I've been living with these characters for a few years now. I read The Gunslinger at least 2 years ago, probably 3. And now they are forever gone. :( Someday, if I ever have kids, maybe I'll get the chance to read these books to them.Anyway, here are some quotes that I kinda liked.Also, I should tell you that there are potential spoilers in these quotes...so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't read 'em.The emergency bucka was gone, bearing the writer to the nearest hospital or infirmary, Roland assumed. Peace officers had come just as it left, and they spent perhaps half an hour talking with Bryan Smith. The gunslinger could hear the palaver from where he was, just over the first rise. The bluebacks' questions were clear and calm, Smith's answers little more than mumbles. Roland saw no reason to stop working. If the blues came back here and found him, he would deal with them. Just incapacitate them, unless they made that impossible; gods knew there had been enough killing. But he would bury his dead, one way or another. He would bury his dead. [The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, p.472]They had to go fireless three nights instead of one or two. The last was the longest, most wretched twelve hours of Susannah's life. Is it worse than the night Eddie died? she asked herself at one point. Are you really saying this is worse than lying awake in one of those dormitory rooms, knowing that was how you'd be lying from then on? Worse than washing his face and hands and feet? Washing them for the ground? Yes. This was worse. She hated knowing it, and would never admit it to anyone else, but the deep, endless cold of that last night was far worse. [The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, p.629] "Lie over," Roland said. "Sleep. I'll take the first watch." She didn't argue. Given her full belly and the heat of the fire, she knew sleep would come quickly. She also knew that when she woke up tomorrow, she was going to be so stiff that even sitting up would be difficult and painful. Now, though, she didn't care. A feeling of vast contentment filled her. Some of it was having eaten hot food, but by no means all. The greater part of her well-being stemmed from a day of hard work, no more or less than that. The sense that they were not just floating along but doing for themselves. Jesus, she thought, I think I'm becoming a Republican in my old age. [The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, p.641]
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On the subject of senility.... [Oct. 25th, 2005|10:30 pm]Citing Literary Works
_"We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image."_- The Old Curiosity Shop, Charles Dickens
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a little Anais Nin [Aug. 25th, 2005|12:03 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |anxiousanxious] [Current Music** ani difranco :: recoil]"The entire mystery of pleasure in a woman's body lies in the intensity of the pulsation just before the orgasm. Sometimes it is slow, one-two-three, three palpitations which then project a fiery and icy liqueur through the body. If the palpitation is feeble, muted, the pleasure is like a gentler wave. The pocket seed of ecstasy bursts with more or less energy, when it is richest it touches every portion of the body, vibrating through every nerve and cell. If the palpitation is intense, the rhythm and beat of it is slower and the pleasure more lasting. Electric flesh-arrows, a second wave of pleasure falls over the first, a third which touches every nerve end, and now the third like an electric current traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm. There are times when a woman feels her body but lightly played on. Others when it reaches such a climax it seems it can never surpass. So many climaxes. Some caused by tenderness, some by desire, some by a word or an image seen during the day. There are times when the day itself demands a climax, days of which do not end in a climax, when the body is asleep or dreaming other dreams. There are days when the climax is not pleasure but pain, jealousy, terror, anxiety. And there are days when the climax takes place in creation, a white climax. Revolution is another climax. Sainthood another."
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(no subject) [Aug. 20th, 2005|04:11 pm]Citing Literary Works
the black artanne sextonA woman who writes feels too much,those trances and portents!As if cycles and children and islandsweren't enough; as if mourners and gossipsand vegetables were never enough.She thinks she can warn the stars.A writer is essentially a spy.Dear love, I am that girl.A man who writes knows too much,such spells and fetiches!As if erections and congresses and productsweren't enough; as if machines and galleonsand wars were never enough. With used furniture he makes a tree.A writer is essentially a crook.Dear love, you are that man.Never loving ourselves,hating even our shoes and hats,we love each other, precious, precious.Our hands are light blue and gentle.Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.But when we marry,the children leave in disgust.There is too much food and no one left overto eat up all the weird abundance.
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(no subject) [Aug. 14th, 2005|08:30 pm]Citing Literary Works
_Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty._--Oscar Wilde(i just read this somewhere strange the other day and wrote it in my quotation notebook. i'd forgotten all about it until i saw it posted in another community earlier.)
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this one's for the Homophobes [Aug. 10th, 2005|08:27 am]Citing Literary Works
This is nothing literary, per se... but most of the people on my friends list don't need to see this, so i thought i'd spread the word here. it's really more sad than anything, a bit pointless maybe but you never know when the light might turn on in someone's phobic little heart! :)(plus i never have anything else to post here!)I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they foundout my abusive partner is also a woman.I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much betterperson if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.Repost this if you believe homophobia is wrong.
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(no subject) [Jul. 27th, 2005|10:17 pm]Citing Literary Works
_"Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another; makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and persue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty?"_- The Sense of Beauty, George Santayana
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Valley of the Dolls ~ by Jacqueline Susann [Jul. 27th, 2005|07:15 am]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood |awake] [Current Music DHT]“Still looking for that stars-in-your-eyes kind of love?” Jennifer asked. “You know, Anne, I guess a woman can either love or be loved, but it’s almost impossible to have both.”
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From: Jesus The Son Of Man Written By Kahlil Gibran [Jul. 13th, 2005|12:40 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |numbnumb] [Current Music** OutKast - She Lives In My Lap (feat. Rosario Dawson) -]**( .MARY MAGDALEN On Meeting Jesus for the First Time.Collapse )**I started this book a few days ago, and particular chapter...the way Jesus speaks to her, what he says to her...powerful, beautiful, simple...moving. I hope you like as much as I. =]
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(no subject) [Jul. 12th, 2005|11:11 pm]Citing Literary Works
_"The Darwinian perspective is central to all of modern biology, from investigations of the molecular structure of DNA to studies of the behavior of apes and men. It connects us with our long-forgotten ancestors and our swarm of relatives, the millions of other species with whom we share the Earth. But the price exacted has been high, and there are still - especially in the United States - those who refuse to pay, and for very human and fathomable reasons. Evolution suggests that if God exists, God is fond of secondary causes and factotum processes: getting the Universe going, establishing the laws of Nature, and then retiring from the scene. A hands-on Executive seems to be absent; power has been delegated. Evolution suggests that God will not intervene, whether beseeched or not, to save us from ourselves. Evolution suggests we're on our own - that if there is a God, that God must be very far away. This is enough to explain much of the emotional anguish and alienation that evolution has worked. We long to believe that there's someone at the helm."_- Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
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(no subject) [Jun. 29th, 2005|03:39 am]Citing Literary Works
_"...Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes run mad, as if mad is a direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in."_- Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
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a favorite bit of lyrics.... [Jun. 27th, 2005|11:16 am]Citing Literary Works
[**Current Mood** |mischievousmischievous]You can send me dead flowers every morningSend me dead flowers by the mailSend me dead flowers to my weddingAnd I won’t forget to put roses on your grave.The Rolling Stones, "Dead Flowers"
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1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 [Jun. 26th, 2005|07:26 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Music |Jeff Buckley - If You See Her, Say Hello - Live At Sin-e - 2003]If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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(no subject) [Jun. 25th, 2005|10:17 pm]Citing Literary Works
"What do you think the secret of a long-lasting marriage is?" Micah asked. "I don't know if there's a secret. Every couple is different. What works for one might not work for another." "I know. But if you could pick one thing, what would it be?" I hesitated. Above me, the sky was charcoal; clouds were rolling and shifting, changing shape by the minute. "Commitment," I finally said. "Both people have to be committed. I think if two people are committed to the marriage, if they really want to make it work, then they'll find a way to do it. No matter what happens in life. If you marry someone who isn't committed--or if you're not committed--and something goes wrong, the marriage won't make it. Marriage is hard." "Hmm," is all Micah said. "How about you? What do you think the secret is?" "I have no idea. I've only been married four years. But for me and Christine, I think it's communication. When we talk about issues and really open up to each other, things are great between us. When we keep things to ourselves, grudges and resentments build up and we end up arguing." I said nothing. "What?" You don't think communication is important?" I shrugged. "What good is talking if neither of you are really committed? If one of you had an affair or got addicted to drugs or was abusive, simply talking about it wouldn't take the hurt away. Or fix the trust that's been lost. In the end, marriage comes down to actions. I think people talk too much about the things that bother them, instead of actually doing the little things that keep a marriage strong. You have to know what your spouse needs from you, and then you do it. And you avoid doing the things that harm the relationship. If your spouse acts the same way, your marriage can make it through anything." He smiled. "Like you and Cat?" "Yeah," I said quietly. "Like me and Cat."Nicholas & Micah SparksThree Weeks With My Brother
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(no subject) [Jun. 24th, 2005|07:42 pm]Citing Literary Works
[**Current Mood** |lonelylonely] "Dreams are always crushing when they don't come true. But it's the simple dreams that are often the most painful because they seem so personal, so reasonable, so attainable. You're always close enough to touch, but never quite close enough to hold, and it's enough to break your heart.Nicholas & Micah SparksThree Weeks With My Brother
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.From Dune. [Jun. 23rd, 2005|03:24 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |calmcalm] [Current Music** *** 4. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye]I'm reading Dune for the first time, and every time this quote comes up I am inspired. Oldie but goodie:I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I shall remain. - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
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(no subject) [Jun. 20th, 2005|05:24 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |sadsad]NOTE: This is from the book "Flowers for Algernon". I'm putting in the last part of the book, so if you haven't read it but are planning to read it, DON'T READ THIS!"nov 21- I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians class at the adult center any more like I use to be. I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she lookd at me funny and said Charlie where have you been. So I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my lessen today only I lossed the book we was using. She started to cry and run out of the room and everbody looked at me and I saw alot of them wasnt the same pepul who use to be in my class.Then all of a suddin I remembered some things about the operashun and me getting smart and I said holy smoke I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I went away before she came back to the room. Thats why Im going away from here for good to the Warren Home school. I dont want to do nothing like that agen. I dont want Miss Kinnian to feel sorry for me. I know evrybody feels sorry for me at the bakery and I dont want that eather so Im going someplace where they are a lot of other pepul like me and nobody cares that Charlie Gordon was once a genus and now he cant even reed a book or rite good.Im taking a cuple of books along and even if I cant reed them Ill practise hard and mabye Ill even get a littel bit smarter then I was before the operashun without an operashun. I got a new rabbits foot and a luky penny and even a littel bit of that majic powder left and mabye they will help me. If you ever read this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me. Im glad I got a second chanse in life like you said to be smart because I lerned alot of things that I never even new were in this werld and Im grateful I saw it all eve nfor a littel bit. And Im glad I found out all about my family and me. It was like I never had a family til I remembird about them and saw them and now I know I had a family and I was a person just like evryone.I dont no why Im dumb agen or what I did rong. Mabye its because I dint try hard enuf or just some body put the evel eye on me. But if I try and practis very hard mabye Ill get a littel samrter and no what all the words are. I remembir a littel bit how nice I had a feeling with the blue book that I red with the toren cover. And when I close my eyes I think about the man tored the book and he looks like me only he looks different and he talks different but I dont think its me because its like I see him from the window.Anyway thats why Im gone to keep trying to get smart so I can have that feeling agen. Its good to no things and be smart and I wish I new evrything in the hole world. I wish I could be smart agen rite now. If I coud I woud sit down and reed all the time. Anyway I bet Im the first dumb persen in the world who found out some thing inportent for sience. I did something but I dont remembir what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me in Warren and all over the world.Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr Strauss and evrybody...P.S. please tel prof Nemur not to be sucha grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go.P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard."-Flowers for Algernon** by Daniel Keyes
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from The Catcher in the Rye [Jun. 12th, 2005|01:08 pm]Citing Literary Works
Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.
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(no subject) [Jun. 11th, 2005|05:13 pm]Citing Literary Works
_"We are all, as Huxley says someplace, Great Abbreviators, meaning that none of us has the wit to know the whole truth, the time to tell it if we believed we did, or an audience so gullible as to accept it."_Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business - Neil Postman
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I love people who love people. [Jun. 4th, 2005|12:18 pm]Citing Literary Works
We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another.- Luciano De Crescenzo
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(no subject) [Jun. 3rd, 2005|04:17 pm]Citing Literary Works
faegothmother posted this on her journal today, and I stole it from her to share with yous guys.To laugh is to risk appearing a fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk rejection. To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave. He has forfeited his freedom. Only a person who takes risks is free. :: Dr. Leo Buscaglia ::
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Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome [May. 21st, 2005|10:43 am]Citing Literary Works
I said I'd pack.I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living. (It surprises me myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects there are.)-Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome
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(no subject) [May. 20th, 2005|10:20 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood |upset]"'...Who are they?' 'Warriors half-killed. Being alive is one thing, and being dead's another, but being half-killed is worse than either. They just can't die, and living is altogether beyond 'em. They wander about forever. They're called the Breathless Ones because of what's been done to 'em."'And what's that?' said Lyra, wide-eyed.'The North Tartars snap open their ribs and pull out their lungs. There's an art to it. They do it without killing them, but their lungs can't work anymore without their daemons pumping 'em by hand, so the result is they're halfway between breath and no breath, life and death, half-killed, you see. And their daemons got to pump and pump all day and night, or else perish with 'em. You come across a whole platoon of Breathless Ones in the forest sometimes, I've heard. And then there's the _panserbjorne_- you heard of them? That means they're armored bears. They're great white bears, and-''Yes! I have heard of them! One of the men last night, he said that my uncle, Lord Asriel, he's being imprisioned in a fortress guarded by the armored bears....'"-The Golden Compass- Phillip Pullman
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(no subject) [May. 17th, 2005|12:50 am]Citing Literary Works
Men When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pauses, Their shoulders high like the Breasts of a young girl, Jacket tails slapping over Those behinds, Men. One day they hold you in the Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you Were the last raw egg in the world. Then They tighten up. Just a little. The First squeeze is nice. A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness. A little More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a Smile that slides around the fear. When the Air disappears, Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly, Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered. It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes. When the earth rights itself again, And taste tries to return to the tongue, Your body has slammed shut. Forever. No keys exist. Then the window draws full upon Your mind. There, just beyond The sway of curtains, men walk. Knowing something. Going someplace. But this time, I will simply Stand and watch. Maybe.--Maya Angelou
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I finally finished it!! On to number 6...yays! [May. 15th, 2005|09:14 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |soresore]Stephen King_The Dark Tower V :: Wolves of the Calla_, [351-353]( jump rope anyone?Collapse )**
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(no subject) [May. 15th, 2005|02:35 pm]Citing Literary Works
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
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I was finally able to start this book! :) (happy Shanna) [May. 2nd, 2005|05:18 pm]Citing Literary Works
[**Current Mood** |goodgood]"No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves."-Stephen King, from Wolves of the Calla
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Change [Apr. 25th, 2005|09:32 pm]Citing Literary Works
Change wears my sister's moccasins. He stays up late and wakes up early. He likes to come up quietly and kiss me on the back of the neck when I am at my drawing table. He wants to amuse people, and it hurts him when they yell at him. Change is very musical, but sometimes you must listen for a long time before you hear the pattern in his music. ~J. Ruth Gendler The book of qualities
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A Tear And A Smile: Kahlil Gibran [Apr. 9th, 2005|12:07 am]Citing Literary Works
This is one of my favorites :-) Had to share!~A Tear And A Smile~I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I could not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding of life's secrets and hidden things. A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and to be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.A tear to unite me with those of broken heart; a smile to be a sign of my joy in existence. I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than I lived weary and despairing.I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the depths of my spirit, for I have seen those who are satisfied the most wretched of people. I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.With evening's coming the flower folds her petals and sleeps, embracing her longing. At mornings approach, she opens her lips to meet the sun's kiss.The life of a flower is longing and fulfillment. A tear and a smile.The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come together and are a cloud. And the cloud floats above the hills and valley's until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping to the fields and joins with the brooks and rivers to return to the sea, its home.The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting. A tear and a smile.And so does the spirit become separated from the greater spirit to move in the world of matter and pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow and the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death and return whence it came.To the ocean of Love and Beauty -- to God.
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D.H. Lawrence quote [Apr. 9th, 2005|12:04 am]Citing Literary Works
And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,and in the morning wake like a new-opened flowerthen I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.-D.H. Lawrence-
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Solitude is a hard won ally, faithful and patient. [Apr. 6th, 2005|12:03 pm]Citing Literary Works
An exerpt from Henry Rollins' _I Know You_[...] I know you. You're sensitive. And you hide it. Because you fear getting stepped on one more time. It seems that when you show a part of yourself that is the least bit vulnerableSomeone takes advantage of you. One of them steps on you. They mistake kindness for weakness. But you know the difference. You've been the brunt of their weakness for years. And strength is something you know a bit about. Because you had to be strong to keep yourself alive. You know yourself very well now, and you don't trust people. You know them too well. You try to find that special person, Someone you can be with, Someone you can touch, Someone you can talk to, Someone you won't feel so strange around, And you found that they don't really exist. You feel closer to people on movie screens. Yeah, I think I know you.
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(no subject) [Mar. 31st, 2005|10:55 pm]Citing Literary Works
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then-- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."The Once and Future King, T.H. White
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from Paul Bowle's 'Sheltering Sky' [Mar. 31st, 2005|05:22 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Music |.:grazed knees by snow patrol:.]"Because we do not know when we will die we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well and yet everything happens only a certain number of times and a very small number really. How many times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your life that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise, perhaps twenty, and yet it all seems so limitless."thanks _tear_stained for this.xposted to my own journal.
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teehee! [Mar. 28th, 2005|10:44 pm]Citing Literary Works
Merlyn put down his knitting and looked at his pupil over the top of his spectacles. "My boy," he said, "you shall be everything in the world, animal, vegetable, mineral, protista or virus, for all I care-- before I have done with you-- but you will have to trust to my superior backsight. The time is not yet ripe for you to be a hawk-- for one thing, Hob is still in the mews feeding them-- so you may as well sit down for a moment and learn how to be a human being.""Very well," said the Wart, "if that's a go." And he sat down.After several minutes he said, "Is one allowed to speak as a human being, or does the thing about being seen and not heard apply?""Everybody can speak.""That's good, because I wanted to mention that you have been knitting your beard into the night-cap for three rows now.""Well, I'll be...""I should think the best thing would be to cut off the end of your beard. Shall I fetch some scissors?""Why didnt you tell me before?""I wanted to see what would happen.""You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted."The Once and Future King, T.H. White.
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(no subject) [Mar. 25th, 2005|09:09 pm]Citing Literary Works
[Current Mood** |peacefulpeaceful] [Current Music** moneen :: the passing of america]If you have not read Emerson's Essays on Transcendentalism, then you simply have not lived.To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.( moreCollapse )
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(no subject) [Mar. 25th, 2005|04:51 pm]Citing Literary Works
Because today is Good Friday, and I didn't make it to church to hear this read.In the Catholic tradition, the Passion of Jesus according to the Gospel of John is read on Good Friday.( From the Gospel According to JohnCollapse )
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(no subject) [Mar. 24th, 2005|07:53 pm]Citing Literary Works
[**Current Mood** |mischievousmischievous]"I have heard the beast poundin the breath of a bird...and felt in its feathers the fire.I have hated with passionthe gathering herdand the weight of its common desire.Ah, but no rest for weary terrestrial wingsin beating oppressive air;they long for the strengthof celestial thingslike the essence of myrrh in her hair.".:Anais Nin:.
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(no subject) [Mar. 21st, 2005|02:22 am]Citing Literary Works
No one spoke: we all gazed at the empty fireplace. My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said: - Ah, well, he's gone to a better world. Eliza sighed again and bowed her head in assent. My aunt fingered the stem of her wine glass before sipping a little. - Did he... peacefully? she asked. - O, quite peacefully, ma'am, said Eliza. You couldn't tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised. - And everything...? - Father O'Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and prepared him and all. - He knew then? - He was quite resigned. - He looks quite resigned, said my aunt - Thats what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he just looked as if he were asleep, he looked that peaceful and resigned. No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse. - Yes, indeed, said my aunt. She sipped a little more from her glassJames Joyce, DublinersI can't think of anyone who does death and restraint quite like Joyce. I wish I could quote the entire book
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(no subject) [Mar. 20th, 2005|12:36 pm]Citing Literary Works
"What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere. If an unpublished poet discovers one of his own images in the work of another writer it gives him no comfort, for his allegiance is not to the image or its progress in the public domain, his allegiance is to the notion that he is not bound to the world as given, that he can escape from the painful arrangment of things as they are. Jesus probably designed his system so that it would fail in the hands of other men, that is the way with the greatest creators: they guaruntee the desperate power of their own originality by projecting their systems into an abrasive future."-Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen
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(no subject) [Mar. 17th, 2005|07:30 pm]Citing Literary Works
It's hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace....The way people are coming to the island, more and more every summer, you see more litter. The fresh water is in shorter and shorter supply. But, of course, you cant cap growth. It's anti-American. Selfish. It's tyrannical. Evil. Every cild has the right to a life. Every person has the right to live where they can afford. We're entitled to pursue happiness wherever we can drive to, fly to, sail to, to hunt it down. Too many people rushing to one place, sure, they ruin it-- but that's the system of checks and balances, the way the market adjusts itself. This way, wrecking a place is the only way to save it. You have to make it look horrible to the outside world. Diary, Chuck Palahniuk
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courtesy of wearingwords [Mar. 17th, 2005|04:39 pm]Citing Literary Works
"When life brings you down, just say 'fuck it' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy."David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
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hi! [Mar. 16th, 2005|06:08 pm]Citing Literary Works
[**Current Mood** |chipperchipper]"Maggots already writhe across the human sausage, the drool pouring from my lips dribbles over them, and still, I can't tell if I'm cooking any of this correctly because I'm crying too hard and I have never really cooked anything before.""...where there was nature and earth, life and water, I saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel backward, unable to take it in. It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I dealt with the tangible. This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's taking pleasure in a feeeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person's love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term "generosity of spirit" applied to nothing, was a cliché, was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire- meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocense, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in... this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged..."both from American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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(no subject) [Mar. 16th, 2005|01:26 am]Citing Literary Works
"God works, as is very well known, in mysterious ways. There is just nothing you can name that He won't do, now and then. Oh, He will send down so much rain that all his little people are drinkig from one another's sewers and dying of the kakakaka. Then he will organize a drought to scortch out the yam and the manioc fields, so whoever did not die of fever will double over from hunger. What next, you might ask? Why, a mystery, that's what! After the Independence cut off our stipend and all contacts with the larger world, it seems God's plan called for Mother and Ruth May to fall sick nigh unto death." --an excerpt from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
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