Hi! handsome hunting man Fire your little gun. Bang! Now the animal is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!
Lear, Macbeth. Mercutio – they live on their own as it were. The newspapers are full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been in a Police Court? Have you ever watched tradesmen behind their counters? My soul, the secr...
It was this mystery, bereft now of all fear, and this beauty together that made life the endless, changing and yet changeless, thing it was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike were really only appreciable with one's legs, as it were, dangling down ...
We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; what...
That's why I've just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn't at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. ...
God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise.
Bold courage is paralyzing fear after humble prayer.
In these days of faith-cures, and hypnotism, and telepathy, and subliminalities – why, the simple old world grows very confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel.
Yes, after all, this by now was his customary loneliness: there was little else he desired for the present than the hospitality of the dark.
After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front – in our ancestors, back and back until...
I believe in the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and they are powerless – in the long run. They – what shall we say? - have surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can go through...
Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.
Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.
The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.
I cupped her chin and tilted it back, deepening the kiss, wanting to somehow claim her very soul. Funny thing was, it was my soul that was being claimed, my breath that was being stolen, and my heart that was pounding crazy fast in my chest.
It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged.
He got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquility hung the morning star, and rose, rilling into the dusk of night the first grey of dawn. The str...
Science, I am told, is making great strides, experimenting, groping after things which no sane man has ever dreamed of before – without being burned alive for it.
A soft smile curved up her lips, and my gut dropped a little. A smile…I’d never known a smile could have that kind of effect. Could feel like a kick to the chest.
An hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity.
