“As he looked out in the pitch dark beyond, a barn owl came into the floodlight, glid silently between the barns and was gone, seeming to leave some ghost of itself, some measureless whiteness in the air.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
“A singular moth flutters in through the wind baffles to the naked bulb above the kettle, cuspid, a drifting piece of loose ash on the white filament, paper burnt up, caught in the rising current from some fire unseen, unfelt.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
“He thinks of her sleeping now, the rest she needs, thinks of the warmth of her body, the nest-like thing she could be to his tiredness.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
“And then he draws the lamb in one smooth strong stroke, and slaps and rakes its wet mosslike fur to make it breathe, feels the power of its fast heartbeat in the chicken-bone cage of its ribs, still wet in his hands from the grease of birth, all these things of life, from jissom to mucus slavered between thighs to the wet sack of birth and glistening oiled newborn thing—all of these things of life awatered.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
“It is the ability of a person to bring a reaction in us that gives us a relationship with them, and for the time they do that they have a livingness to them.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
“I wonder if she feels from me the thing I feel about her when I touch her. Not in sex, which he understood now was a different thing from everything else. I just mean when I touch her skin before we sleep and I understand all the things beneath it. Animals can't have that. They can't build their loved ones that way and feel right through their skin. That's never worn off, whatever else. He looked a where she slept. I can't imagine living without that.”
― Cynan Jones, quote from The Dig
Cynan Jones
Born place: in Aberystwyth, The United Kingdom
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“Ow! You bit me!” Sophia pushed against his chest with one hand and cupped her wounded mouth with the other. For a moment he couldn’t make himself let her go but then the expression on her face finally registered. The fear was back in her large green eyes and this time it was mixed with pain. “That really hurt,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Sylvan’s voice sounded strange even in his own ears as he tried to get used to talking with his new fangs. Damn it, why wouldn’t they shrink again? And why had they grown in the first place? Anyone would think he wanted to bond her to him. But that wasn’t true—couldn’t be true. He was aware of the whispering going on around them again but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the wounded look in Sophia’s eyes. The look that said she was in pain and he was the cause of it. It was almost more than he could bear. “Please,” he said, reaching for her. “I’m truly sorry. It was an accident.” She pulled away before he could touch her. “It’s all right.” But her voice and actions said it wasn’t. Said that it would never be all right. And why did that tear at his heart so? “Hey,”
― Evangeline Anderson, quote from Hunted
“Julius brooded. He could see Julius despising the medical school of Pavia. Tobie said, "Nicholas managed the journey from Flanders all right. Deferred to you, joked discreetly with me, got on like a dyeworks on fire with the muleteers.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, quote from The Spring of the Ram
“She...ran away so often, and with so many different people, that she became known to her family and friends as the Bolter....”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate
“For before I met my friend there had been a period when I was prey to a morbid melancholy, if not depression, when I really believed I was lost, when for years I did no proper work but spent most of my days in a state of total apathy and often came close to putting an end to my life by my own hand. For years I had taken refuge in a terrible suicidal brooding, which deadened my mind and made everything unendurable, above all myself—brooding on the utter futility all around me, into which I had been plunged by my general weakness, but above all my weakness of character. For a long time I could not imagine being able to go on living, or even existing. I was no longer capable of seizing upon any purpose in life that would have given me control over myself. Every morning on waking I was inevitably caught up in this mechanism of suicidal brooding, and I remained in its grip throughout the day. And I was deserted by everyone because I had deserted everyone—that is the truth—because I no longer wanted anyone. I no longer wanted anything, but I was too much of a coward to make an end of it all. It was probably at the height of my despair—a word that I am not ashamed to use, as I no longer intend to deceive myself or gloss over anything, since nothing can be glossed over in a society and a world that perpetually seeks to gloss over everything in the most sickening manner—that Paul appeared on the scene at Irina’s apartment in the Blumenstockgasse.”
― Thomas Bernhard, quote from Wittgenstein's Nephew
“Septimus was suddenly horribly afraid that the Antidote would not work. He glanced nervously at Marcia, who whispered, "It will work, Septimus. You must believe in it."
Physik isn't like Magyk," said Septimus unhappily. "It doesn't matter whether you expect it to work or not. Either it does or it doesn't."
"I doubt that very much," said Marcia. "A little belief in something always helps.”
― Angie Sage, quote from Physik
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