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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #side
We live, all of us, in sprung rhythm. Even in cities, folk stir without knowing it to the surge in the blood that is the surge and urgency of season. In being born, we have taken seisin of the natural world, and as ever, it is the land which owns us, not we, the land. Even in the countryside, we dwell suspended between the rhythms of earth and season, weather and sky, and those imposed by metropolitan clocks, at home and abroad. When does the year begin? No; ask rather, When does it not? For us – all of us – as much as for Mr Eliot, midwinter spring is its own season; for all of us, if we but see it, our world is as full of time-coulisses as was Thomas Mann’s. Countrymen know this, with the instinct they share with their beasts. Writers want to know it also, and to articulate what the countryman knows and cannot, perhaps, express to those who sense but do not know, immured in sad conurbations, rootless amidst Betjeman’s frightful vision of soot and stone, worker’s flats and communal canteens, where it is the boast of pride that a man doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet. As both countryman and writer, I have a curious relationship to time. ↗
#country-life #countryside #sir-john-betjeman #time #village-life
Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention." [Shrub Flubs His Dub, The Nation, June 18, 2001] ↗
Deep spirit scanning,” Eisfanger says. His voice has a strange resonance to it, like I’m hearing him through a bad phone connection. “Don’t worry, it’s completely safe. Well, mostly.” “Mostly?” “Side effects have been documented,” he admits. “In a very small percentage of cases. Less than two percent.” “What kind of side effects?” Suddenly I’m feeling nauseous. Feels like the ants are crawling around inside me now, which is exactly as disturbing as it sounds. “Memory loss. Synesthesia. And occasionally … vestigial growths.” “So I could forget my own name, start smelling purple everywhere and have an extra nipple sprout from my forehead? ↗
The snail pushes through a green night, for the grass is heavy with water and meets over the bright path he makes, where rain has darkened the earth's dark. He moves in a wood of desire, pale antlers barely stirring as he hunts. I cannot tell what power is at work, drenched there with purpose, knowing nothing. What is a snail's fury? All I think is that if later I parted the blades above the tunnel and saw the thin trail of broken white across litter, I would never have imagined the slow passion to that deliberate progress. ↗
Finally, the president added, 'The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic... ↗
#bob-woodward #idealists #leadership #obama-s-wars #president
IF her life had taught her anything, it was that you never really knew what people had going on beneath the surface. People were shit. The only difference between them and animals was people felt the need to hide it. ↗
The real thing about evil," said the Witch at the doorway, "isn't any of what you said. You figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It's like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret. ↗
