Taltos

His Back was turned to the end of the world and the end of the world was quiet.

fragrance was the sharpest trigger of memory, a transport into forgotten worlds.

And she and I, we will take that guilt to our graves of whatever we did and didn’t do, or had to do, or failed to do

I wish you hadn't told her. If you must know, I could have done without your telling her I commited statutory rape on the living room couch with her cousin." - Michael Curry

This is a world where human races battle endlessly, where people of one faith still slaughter people of another. Religious wars rage from Sri Lanka to Bosnia, from Jerusalem to American cities and towns where Christians still, in the name of Jesus Christ, bring death in his name to their enemies, to their own, even to little children. Tribe, race, clan, family. Deep within us all are the seeds of hate for what is different. We do not have to be taught these things. We have to be taught not to give in to them! They are in our blood, but on our minds is the charity and the love to overcome them.

Deep within us all are the seeds of hate for what is different. We do not have to be taught these things. We have to be taught not to give in to them! They are in our blood; but in our minds is the charity and the love to overcome them.

I mean that one cannot expect to possess knowledge which does not change one. Once one knows, then one is acting upon that knowledge, whether it is to withhold the knowledge from those who would also be changed, or to give it to them.

Divesting oneself so totally of the customary feelings of alienation and distrust that the subsequent acceptance was intellectually orgasmic.

Poetry is truth... It is the highest truth, and eloquence is its attribute.

What race can live with any other? What religion with any other? War is worldwide; and the wars are tribal, no matter what men say they are! They are tribal, and they are wars of extermination, whether it be the Arabs against the Kurds, or the Turks and the Europeans, or the Russian fighting the Oriental. It’s never going to stop. People dream that it will, but it can’t, as long as there are people.

I have learned to live with a profound loneliness. I forget about it for years and years. Then it surfaces, the desire to be placed in context by somebody else. The desire to be known, understood, evaluated morally by a sophisticated mind.

And I suppose I do believe, in the final analysis, that a peace of mind can be obtained in the face of the worst horrors and the worst losses. It can be obtained by faith in change and in will and in accident; and by faith in ourselves, that we will do the right thing, more often than not, in the face of adversity.

An icy gust of air rose from the open doors. Blackness. I cannot be locked in blackness. I cannot! And finally he screamed. He couldn't hold it back any longer. He screamed, the terrible cry begun before he was pushed forward, before he felt himself topple from the threshold, before he realized he was plunging down and down into the blackness, into the nothingness...

His mind was horrifyingly empty and still; and he felt the loneliness and the stillness of the rooms completely.

Forget you need anyone to love you for what you are. That’s impossible. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what you will do now. The pattern’s all too familiar.

Music like that could hurt you. It gave you back your disappointment, and your emptiness. It said, Life can be this. Remember this.

: And I suppose I do believe, in the final analysis, that a peace of mind can be obtained in the face of the worst horrors and the worst losses. It can be obtained by faith in change and in will and in accident; and by faith in ourselves, that we will do the right thing, more often than not, in the face of adversity.

Stars filled every quadrant of the heavens. The moon drew her veil and then lowered it again, and the soft breeze made the pines shiver ever so slightly,

Alienation, a lack of trust either in happiness or in others.

And pain was pain, whether physical or mental. Not the wisest of men or women or Taltos would ever know which was worse—the pain of the heart or the pain of the flesh.

Planned obsolesence, mass destruction of last year’s goods, the rush to antiquate or render irrelevent others’ designs, it was the result of a tragic lack of vision.

There began all the things human beings hold sacred, which can only come from difficulty, struggle, and the growing idealization of bliss and perfection, which can only flourish in the mind when paradise is utterly lost.

Ashlar: "I have learned to live with a profound loneliness. I forget about it for years and years. Then it surfaces, the desire to be placed in context by somebody else. The desire to be known, understood, evaluated morally by a sophisticated mind. That was always the lure of the Talamasca, from the beginning, that I could go there and confide in my scholars, that we would talk late into the night.(...) Human beings very seldom survive without that kind of exchange, communication. Love.

Todos llevamos en nuestro corazón la semilla del odio hacia lo que es distinto. No tienen que enseñarnos esos sentimientos. Lo que tenemos que aprender es a no sucumbir a ellos. Los llevamos en la sangre; pero en nuestras mentes anida la caridad y el amor para superarlos.