“I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, my wife was torn away from me, my daughter is going away with my mother, my father has gone away from his father, my earliest friends - where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a waterspray. The law of life. No sense in battling against it...." Thus I reconciled myself to this separation with less struggle than before.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher
“This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage . . . What about our own roots? . . . I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher
“He then explained his new philosophy, which followed the devastating discovery that Love and Friendship were the veriest illusions. He explained that people married because their sexual appetite had to be satisfied and there must be somebody to manage the house. There was nothing deeper than that in any man and woman relationship.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher
“We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy--a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher
“The next three days I was very busy. My table was placed in the front room of the new house. All my papers and books were arranged neatly. My clothes hung on a peg. The rest of the house was swept and cleaned.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher
R.K. Narayan
Born place: in Chennai, India
Born date October 10, 1906
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“The thing about dreams, though, is they usually sound crazy to everyone but you. All it takes is one other person to buy into them to keep you going.”
― quote from Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games
“You lose people sometimes, you know. You don’t expect to, but then it happens and you can’t get them back.” We”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The Marriage of Opposites
“If you accept the position of governor, part of your job is to make sure all your people have a decent shot at making something good out of their lives.”
― Timothy Zahn, quote from Choices of One
“Human emotions can be a powerful thing. They can make you see things in an entirely different light.”
― A.G. Howard, quote from The Moth in the Mirror
“How clear she shines ! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
" To morrow, wake, but, dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love !
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.
The world is going; dark world, adieu !
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart, thou canst not all subdue,
Must still resist, if thou delay !
Thy love I will not, will not share;
Thy hatred only wakes a smile;
Thy griefs may wound–thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile !
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee !
And, this shall be my dream to-night;
I'll think the heaven of glorious spheres
[Page 104]
Is rolling on its course of light
In endless bliss, through endless years;
I'll think, there's not one world above,
Far as these straining eyes can see,
Where Wisdom ever laughed at Love,
Or Virtue crouched to Infamy;
Where, writhing 'neath the strokes of Fate,
The mangled wretch was forced to smile;
To match his patience 'gainst her hate,
His heart rebellious all the while.
Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,
And helpless Reason warn in vain;
And Truth is weak, and Treachery strong;
And Joy the surest path to Pain;
And Peace, the lethargy of Grief;
And Hope, a phantom of the soul;
And Life, a labour, void and brief;
And Death, the despot of the whole !”
― Emily Brontë, quote from The Complete Poems of Emily Bronte [with Biographical Introduction]
Nightmares!
Faceless
The Teacher
Up in the Treehouse
The Twelve Tribes of...
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