Literary Musings

"This extreme air of abstraction, of empty and bland removedness, was almost terrifying. It was that kind of unconcern that humbled the ardent, the passionate of nature, and made them wonder why they were expending so much energy of body and spirit when every day but led them to the worms."

~From Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake

Friday Musings

"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in the world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough."

~From Tinkers, by Paul Harding

Friday Musings

"Except I can sit here and think like this all night and you know what it does? It starts a bushfire in me. My chest tightens and my jaw clamps and my hands shake and I can feel it burning me up and there's just no relief from it. I want to drive and even then I don't think I could crash hard enough ... I'm glad I never told anybody ... Because that'd be just like letting it happen again. Once they know they've got hold of your shame, they can shake it out and hold it up for all the world to see. And you become less than it. You become something disgusting. Tainted. Stained. Soiled."

~From Raw Blue, by Kirsty Eagar

Friday Musings

"It was the only living thing in sight except for a stationary cloud of hysterical gnats suspended in the heat above the road."

~From Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

FRIDAY MUSINGS

"Her lovely face was round like a plate and shallow as if there was no kind of thought behind it except the idea of its own loveliness."

~From Me and Mr Booker, by Cory Taylor, 2011