No subscription or hidden extras
Read through the most famous quotes by topic #lon
Search your heart. He's there, Kate. You can ignore Him, try to run and hide from Him, even convince yourself that He's not there, but He promised us that he would never leave or forsake us." He tipped his head to the side. "Kind of like how you promised not to leave Maggie when she was going through labor. Maggie still had to go through it. You couldn't take her pain away, but you were there to hold her hand, to encourage her, to make sure she knew she wasn't alone, and when it was all said and done, something beautiful came out of what she endured. ↗
Meanwhile, we have carved out a place for ourselves among the dead; the glittering pinnacles of commerce rise along the skyline, their foundations sunk in a charnel house; and the lost lie forgotten below us as, overhead, we persaude ourselves that we are immortal and carry on the business of life. ↗
#dead #death #london #necropolis #business
I’d felt this before, when my granddad was in the hospital before he died. We all camped out in the waiting room, eating our meals together, most of us sleeping in the chairs every night. Family from far-flung places would arrive at odd hours and we’d all stand and stretch, hug, get reacquainted, and pass the babies around. A faint, pale stream of beauty and joy flowed through the heavy sludge of fear and grief. It was kind of like those puddles of oil you see in parking lots that look ugly until the sun hits them and you see rainbows pulling together in the middle of the mess. And wasn’t that just how life usually felt—a confusing swirl of ugly and rainbow? ↗
#death #depression #family #glass-girl #grief
There’s nothing like that feeling of waiting for a guy. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. Holding that cell phone in your hand as you take out the trash, use the bathroom, change the litter box. Fearful that the one second you aren’t looking will be when they call. Pathetic. And something I have done as recently as last week. ↗
No one ever said aloud any of the kinds of things he was so constantly thinking, because no one in the parish, not Alice, not Lady Higgs, not anybody, ever seemed to see the things he saw. If they thought as he did, if they saw what he did, they never mentioned it; and to have things which are precious to one eternally unmentioned makes one, he had long discovered, lonely. These August nights, for instance--quite remarkably and unusually beautiful, warm and velvety as he had never known them, ushered in each evening by the most astonishing variety of splendid sunsets--nobody had said a single word about them. They might have been February ones, for all the notice they got. Sometimes he climbed up to the top of Burdon Down towards evening, and stood staring in amazement at what looked like heaven let loose in flames over England; but always he stood alone, always there was no one but himself up there, and no one afterwards, when he descended from his heights, seemed to be aware that anything unusual had been going on. ↗
Perhaps it was that I wanted to see what I had learned, what I had read, what I had imagined, that I would never be able to see the city of London without seeing it through the overarching scrim of every description of it I had read before. When I turn the corner into a small, quiet, leafy square, am I really seeing it fresh, or am I both looking and remembering? [...] This is both the beauty and excitement of London, and its cross to bear, too. There is a tendency for visitors to turn the place into a theme park, the Disney World of social class, innate dignity, crooked streets, and grand houses, with a cavalcade of monarchs as varied and cartoony as Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and, at least in the opinion of various Briths broadhseets, Goofy. They come, not to see what London is, or even what it was, but to confirm a kind of picture-postcard view of both, all red telephone kiosks and fog-wreathed alleyways. ↗
#clichés #fiction #fictional-london #imagination #literary-london
Some people have at least one person, that *special* somebody, that sees them as the cutest, most handsome, and most beautiful person in the world; inside and out. There's nothing or no one that can stop that person from seeing that person that way. All that special somebody does is think about the one they desire and ways to make them happy and smile. They feind and feed off that person's touch; even the touch of their eyes on their skin. It's like the whole world around them fades and there's nothing else they see. Nothing else they even WANT to see. They want that person to like them, love them, and desire and long for them the way they do. They see this person and once again believe that "happily ever afters" can exist. They convulse with the creativity for romance and new ideas and ways to put a smile on their desired one's face. The want and need to share their deepest thoughts and feelings oozing from every pore on their skin. The essence of their presence leaves the thickest aura of passion in the air around them. If they had them, nothing else in this world would matter. To have anything even *similar* to this with someone is to have everything you'll ever need in a lover or some you find intimately significant. When or IF I ever find this, the words will never be associated with me again ↗
Torch strode over and stared at the fiver "What's this?" "Some change for you. Buy your flunkies some decent clothes." I dipped my fingers into the jar and smeared think fragrant paste on my face. Torch frowned, mirroring the expression on my aunt's face. "Change?" Oh, for crying out loud. "It's money. We don't use coins as currency now, we use paper money." He stared at me. "I'm insulting you! I'm saying your poor, like a beggar, because your undead are in rags. I'm offering to clothe your servants for you, because you can't provide for them. Come on, how thick do you have to be?" He jerked his hand up. A jet of flame erupted from his fingers, sliding against the ward. I jerked back from the windows on instinct. The fire died. I leaned forward. "Do you understand now?" More fire. "What's the matter? Was that not enough money? ↗
