A dark curtain seemed to rise before him, and for less than a second he looked upon the mysterious universe of moral suffering. As a landscape is seen complete, and vast, and vivid, under a flash of lightning, so he could see disclosed in a moment all the immensity of pain that can be contained… Continue reading Joseph Conrad
I wanted to come undone like gold thread, like a tent full of birds. — Sandra Cisneros, from “One Holy Night,” Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. (Random House April 3, 1991)
You are the poet, you walk inside my dreams… — Anaïs Nin, Under a Glass Bell (Swallow Press, 1944)
Each year is like putting a new coat over all the old ones. Sometimes I reach into the pockets of my childhood and pull things out. — Simon Van Booy, from “Little Birds,” The Secret Lives of People in Love (Turtle Point Press, 2007)
One day or one night—between my days and nights, what difference can there be?—I dreamed that there was a grain of sand on the floor of my cell. Unconcerned, I went back to sleep; I dreamed that I woke up and there were two grains of sand. Again I slept; I dreamed that now there… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
Stretched out side by side, we exhanged confidences, whispers, smiles. Curled up, she fell on my chest and unfolded there like a vegetation of murmurs. She sang in my ear, a little sea shell. She became humble and transparent, clutching my feet like a small animal, calm water. She was so clear I could read… Continue reading Octavio Paz
It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it. ― George Saunders, from “Escape from Spiderhead,” Tenth of December: Stories. (Random House January 8, 2013)
The Little Match GIrl Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening– the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but… Continue reading Hans Christian Anderson
In one letter that he had written to her then he had said: Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name? ― James Joyce, Dubliners: The Dead. (Grant Richards Ltd., London June 1914)
He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition. ― James Joyce, Dubliners: Eveline. (Grant Richards… Continue reading James Joyce
