Tried Quotes (page 213)
Those who turn the day into night, the young, the drug addict, the profligate, the drunken and that most miserable, the lover who watches all night long in fear and anguish. These can never again live the life of the day. When one meets them at high noon they give off, as if it were a protective emanation, something dark and muted. The light does not become them any longer. They begin to have an unrecorded look. It is as if they were being tried by the continual blows of an unseen adversary.
Djuna Barnes
To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine...So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it.
Henry David Thoreau
Fuck, he couldn’t. But Brandon knew that he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t do everything in his power. Even if it failed, he had to try. It had to be worth it. “Jeff.” He swallowed his fear. “You asked me today if this relationship I’m in was the one…well it is. And the chick I’ve been seeing, the one from San Diego, she ain’t no gal. I can’t lose Nicky. I’m going to lose him. I got nothing if you don’t help.
James Buchanan
External life being so mighty, the instruments so huge and terrible, the performances so great, the thoughts so great and threatening, you produce a someone who can exist before it. You invent a man who can stand before the terrible appearances. This way he can't get justice and he can't give justice, but he can live. And this is what mere humanity always does. It's made up of these inventors or artists, millions and millions of them, each in his own way trying to recruit other people to play...
Saul Bellow
And there you are
on the shore,
fitful and thoughtful, trying
to attach them to an idea —
some news of your own life.
But the lilies
are slippery and wild—they are
devoid of meaning, they are
simply doing,
from the deepest
spurs of their being,
what they are impelled to do
every summer.
And so, dear sorrow, are you.
Mary Oliver
Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?"Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle."What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle-it's just a web."Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian.
E. B. White