Firsts Quotes (page 161)
And Iseult rose up where she sat apart, And with her sweet soul deepening her deep eyes. Cast the furs from her and subtle embroideries. That wrapped her from the storming rain and spray, And shining like all April in one day, Hair, face, and throat dashed with the straying showers, She stood the first of all the whole world's flowers, And laughed on Tristram with her eyes, and said,"I too have heart then, I was not afraid."And answering some light courteous word of grace. He saw her clear...
Algernon Charles Swinburne
He saw it for the first time: on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered e-mails, and in the hovel he called home there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, and unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply and lovers he had not owned up to.
Ian Mcewan
You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.
Rene Daumal
The tiny features below, taken together with the gentle mass of Montblanc towering above them, the Vanoise glacier almost invisible in the shimmering distance, and the Alpine panorama that occupied half the horizon, had for the first time in her life awoken in her a sense of the contrarieties that are in our longings.
W. G. Sebald
It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born. My brother and I were born in London...but our descent, our interest and our joy were in the north country'.Quoted in The Tale of Beatrix Potter a Biography by Margaret Lane, First Edition p 32-33
Beatrix Potter
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. - Sam's Letters for Jennifer
James Patterson