“It's those that fight hardest for freedom who are never free.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Yes,' growled Fell, 'for animals do not know what they do, but man has knowledge of his cruelty.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Death,' whispered Tarlar, 'you do not fear it, Fell? By water, or any other way?'
'What is to fear?" answered the black wolf. 'If it is an end, then so be it. For there is no pain in that, except the pain left to the living... And if death is not an end, then what more than a wonderful journey...”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Our destinies are our own, if we have the courage to take control of them.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“In that moment she learnt one of the greatest secrets of life: It is often easier to fight for others than it is for yourself.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Life is wonderful, so revel in its beauty. Be all you can be, and let go of the past. It is nothing but shadows.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“I wish the battles of men could be solved in their heads.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Real courage is not to give up hope, even in the most terrible darkness, and to carry on. That if courage and love is deep as despair, deeper, then light may come again”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“But of all the animals, man holds the fate of the world in his hands.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Life itself is dispare, so we must make darkness our ally”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Christians believe that God came amongst us as a man, do they not? Yet the Muselmen say he was only a prophet, and that God has no name...We fight and kill each other so readily, yet if I had been born in the East, would I not believe the stories they believe, and if they had been born here, would they not be Christians?”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Man, who thinks he knows everything. But what does man know...Man cares only for himself, in his fear and hate.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“That story placed man above the animals, until man's fall at Eve's hand, and linked humans to God himself, fashioned in his image. But now the black wolf was telling the girl a grave secret. That man was an animal too.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“...man will try to guard his faith more preciously even than his gold.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“The future?' came the voice sadly...'And do we really pass anything on to the future, except mirrors of ourselves? What if the future is as painful as the past?'
'That we can never know,'answered the wolf angrily. 'That's for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe the present. Here and now...What we owe to ourselves, and to those we're bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“In that moment Alina Sculcuvant knew that of all life's great journeys, perhaps the greatest was to come home, and to know the place for the first time.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Why does death engender fear? Because death meant change, a change greater then we have ever known, and because death was indeed a mirror that made us see ourselves as never before. A mirror that we should cover, as people in olden days covered mirrors when someone died, for fear of an evil. For with all our care and pain for those who had gone, it was ourselves too we felt the agony for. Perhaps ourselves above all.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“They came silently as ghosts themselves, swept along like leaves being scattered about them in the scurrying east wind. Yet their running forms seemed carved out by the wild landscape, in the natural facts of evolution, so they were almost perfectly camouflaged, shielded by the deepening colors of autumn change.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Not stories told by wolf or man to frighten children, of Wolfbane and of werewolves, of grasht and goblins and of silly vampires, fables to frighten cowards with the threat of evil and of sin. But the power that lives beyond those stories, and makes them strong indeed, that lives in nightmares and in sleep. That is ribbed into the very fabric of conscious being. The power of love and hate.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“Freedom without responsibility? What freedom is that? None at all.”
― David Clement-Davies, quote from Fell
“We...find it hard to conceive of...of a consciousness whose power, intellect and capacity can be both infinite and capable of caring," we replied. "We find it hard to accept that there is an unknown thing set above us, to judge us, that we cannot judge in return. Such a concept is, it would appear to us, injustice incarnate, not redemption at all.”
― Kate Griffin, quote from The Neon Court
“What will they say about my poetry
who never touched my blood?
Que diran de mi poesia
los que no tocaron mi sangre?”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from The Book of Questions
“Have you ever noticed that every now and then you'll overhear an amazingly clear declarative sentence when you're out in public, spoken with such force and purpose that you absolutely yearn to know what it means, because it is just so forceful and crystalline? And you want to follow along behind whoever just spoke, even though you don;t know them, just to find out what that sentence means and how it would affect the lives of the people involved?”
― Jeff Lindsay, quote from Dexter By Design
“He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes o the god of the hunt. One day some guys with spears come over the ridge, perform all kinds of meanness, take over, and the new guys rename the town B. Whereupon they hang around the communal fire sharpening arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. Some climatic tragedy occurs — not carving the correct tributary figurines probably — and the people of B move farther south, where word is there’s good fishing, at least according to those who wander to B just before being cooked for dinner. Another tribe of unlucky souls stops for the night in the emptied village, looks around at the natural defenses provided by the landscape, and decides to stay awhile. It’s a while lot better than their last digs — what with the lack of roving tigers and such — plus it comes with all the original fixtures. they call the place C, after their elder, who has learned that pretending to talk to spirits is a fun gag that gets you stuff. Time passes. More invasions, more recaptures, D, E, F, and G. H stands as it is for a while. That ridge provides some protection from the spring floods, and if you keep a sentry up there you can see the enemy coming for miles. Who wouldn’t want to park themselves in that real estate? The citizens of H leave behind cool totems eventually toppled by the people of I, whose lack of aesthetic sense if made up for by military acumen. J, K, L, adventures in thatched roofing, some guys with funny religions from the eastern plains, long-haired freaks from colder climes, the town is burned to the ground and rebuilt by still more fugitives. This is the march of history. And conquest and false hope. M falls to plague, N to natural disaster — same climatic tragedy as before, apparently it’s cyclical. Mineral wealth makes it happen for the O people, and the P people are renowned for their basket weaving. No one ever — ever — mentions Q. The dictator names the city after himself; his name starts with the letter R. When the socialists come to power they spend a lot of time painting over his face, which is everywhere. They don’t last. Nobody lasts because there’s always somebody else. They all thought they owned it because they named it and that was their undoing. They should have kept the place nameless. They should have been glad for their good fortune, and left it at that. X, Y, Z.”
― Colson Whitehead, quote from Apex Hides the Hurt
“The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.”
― Stanley Kunitz, quote from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz
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