#u

9. The Moon Cannot Be Stolen Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of the mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon. ↗

— Nyogen Senzaki

#zen-flesh-zen-bones #beauty

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#nostalgia #small-town #south-carolina #spring #beauty

Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business. ↗

— Twyla Tharp

#existing #judgment

The mass depiction of the modern woman as a "beauty" is a contradiction: Where modern women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality, as the myth has it, "beauty" is by definition inert, timeless, and generic. That this hallucination is necessary and deliberate is evident in the way "beauty" so directly contradicts women's real situation. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#media #society #beauty

We sat on the floor eating donuts, completely dazed and hung over. I looked up at the window every so often to gaze at the Christmas lights. They were so beautiful. They blinked on and off in what should have been the early night dark but was really the early morning dark. ↗

— Chrissi Sepe

#beauty

He who kills from afar knows nothing at all about act of killing. He who kills from afar derives no lesson from life or from death; he neither risks nor stains his hands with blood, nor hears the breathing of his adversary, nor reads the fear, courage, or indifference in his eyes. He who kills from afar tests neither his arm, his heart, nor his conscience, nor does he create ghosts that will later haunt him every single night for the rest of his life. He who kills from afar is a knave who commends to others the dirty and terrible task that is his own. ↗

— Arturo Pérez-Reverte

#courage

The one who kills runs the risk of destroying the entire world just building up the courage to meet death eye-to-eye. ↗

— Blassreiter Season

#courage

Forward into the untrodden! Courage, old man,and hold on to your umbrella! Have you got your garters on? Mind your hat! ("Mr. Arcularis") ↗

— Conrad Aiken

#courage

«Who are you?» whispered the Prince, trying to support those eyes. «Surely you have something special in addition to beauty,» continued she. Galadir closed his eyes, trying to regulate the breath. «Who are you?» «And I can not wait to find out what it is,» whispered the woman with a persuasive tone. ↗

— Chiara Cilli

#beauty

If Spence had really wanted to bed Miss Nordstrum, he would have said how she’d been in his mind since the moment he arrived in Reederville. He’d have added that her visits to Amanda after the baby’s birth had given him hope that she might have come in part to see him. And he would have ended by assuring her that when he agreed to go riding with her today it hadn’t been with the intention of kissing her, but her beauty had stolen his senses away and he couldn’t resist her charms. He wouldn’t have fucked her that afternoon, but sometime within a month, he could’ve seduced her into bed. Spence was a master at weaving a spell of words to charm a woman into doing what he wanted. Hadn’t he proven that with Amanda? Amanda, who wouldn’t leave his head, day or night. Amanda, the most colossal mistake of his life. ↗

— Bonnie Dee

#perfecting-amanda #spencer #beauty