#absence

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement. ↗

— Alice Koller

#achievement #alone #aware #because #being

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. ↗

— Orson Welles

#art #enemy #limitations

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ↗

— Saint Augustine

#absence #justice #organized #robbery #sovereignty

Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, "accustomed to" here is really synonymous with "damaged by. ↗

— Mark Z. Danielewski

#damaged #lifestyle

And,” Annabeth continued, “it reminds me how long we’ve known each other. We were twelve, Percy. Can you believe that?” “No, he admitted. “So…you knew you liked me from that moment?” She smirked. “I hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then—” “Okay, fine.” She leaned in and kissed: him a good, proper kiss without anyone watching—no Romans anywhere, no screaming satyr chaperones. She pulled away. “I missed you, Percy.” Percy wanted to tell her the same thing, but it seemed too small a comment. While he had been on the Roman side, he’d kept himself alive almost solely by thinking of Annabeth. I missed you didn’t really cover that. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#annabeth-chase #heroes-of-olympus #missing-you #percy-jackson #percy-jackson-and-the-olympians

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. ↗

— Jawaharlal Nehru

#absence #also #brought #come #condition

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#asylum #complexion #due #jerusalem #lunatic

If Bill Finger created Batman, where is Bill Finger's byline on my strip? It is conspicuous by its absence. ↗

— Bob Kane

#batman #bill #conspicuous #created #finger

What? Do you dare smile and suggest for a moment that just because of the Absence between us I cannot make myself vivid to you? Ho! Silly boy! Don't you know that the plainest sort of black ink throbs more than some blood—and the touch of the softest hand is a harsh caress compared to the touch of a reasonably shrewd pen? Here—now, I say—this very moment: Lift this letter of mine to your face, and swear—if you're honestly able to—that you can't smell the rose in my hair! ↗

— Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

#letter #love-letter #love

You’re lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you’ve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you’re like that, unguarded, than when you’re awake. When you’re awake you’re like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can’t reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#great-house #loneliness #nicole-krauss #movies