#sm

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood [p. 53] ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#christmasa #memories #smells #christmas

In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#critics #criticism

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#help

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#escapism #first-sentence #opening-lines #reality #sanity

the phantom of the man-who-would-understand, the lost brother, the twin --- for him did we leave our mothers, deny our sisters, over and over? did we invent him, conjure him over the charring log, nights, late, in the snowbound cabin did we dream or scry his face in the liquid embers, the man-who-would-dare-to-know-us? It was never the rapist: it was the brother, lost, the comrade/twin whose palm would bear a lifeline like our own: decisive, arrowy, forked-lightning of insatiate desire It was never the crude pestle, the blind ramrod we were after: merely a fellow-creature with natural resources equal to our own. ↗

— Adrienne Rich

#love #mankind #poetry #dreams

The longest way must have its close - the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. ↗

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

#night #optimism #night

Actually, since I'm gay I think I should count for two guys instead of just one. I mean, in me you get the male point of view and you don't have to worry about me wanting to touch your boobies. ↗

— P.C. Cast

#damien #house-of-night #marked #night

There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place? ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#responsibility #voyeurism #innocence

They were close enough that he could feel the hurried beat of her heart. He could feel Charlotte's indecision in every word she didn't say and every move she didn't make. She was tense with uncertainty, quivering with irresolution. She might not be leaning into him, but she wasn't pulling away, either. ↗

— Lauren Willig

#night-jasmine #uncertainty #temptation

I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ↗

— George Orwell

#political-satire #quthoritarianism #russian-revolution #virtue