“In the act of writing he experiences, today, an exceptional sensual pleasure -- in the feel of the pen, snug in the crook of his thumb, but even more in the feel of his hand being tugged back lightly from its course across the page by the strict, unvarying shape of the letters, the discipline of the alphabet.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from The Master of Petersburg
“Ese es el gran secreto de las mujeres, eso es lo que les da ventaja sobre los hombres como nosotros. Saben cuándo ceder, cuándo echarse a llorar. Nosotros, tú y yo, no lo sabemos. Aguantamos, embotellamos la pena dentro de nosotros, la encerramos y cal y canto, hasta que se convierte en el mismísimo demonio. Y entonces nos da por cometer alguna estupidez, sólo con tal de librarnos de la pena, aunque no sea más que un par de horas. Sí, cometemos alguna estupidez que luego habremos de lamentar durante toda la vida. Las mujeres no son así, porque conocen el secreto de las lágrimas.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from The Master of Petersburg
“Stiff shoulders humped over the writing-table, and the ache of a heart slow to move. A tortoise heart.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from The Master of Petersburg
“He sits with the pen in his hand, holding himself back from a descent into representations that have no place in the world, on the point of toppling, enclosed within a moment in which all creations lies open at his feet, the moment before he loosens his grip and begins to fall.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from The Master of Petersburg
J.M. Coetzee
Born place: in Cape Town, South Africa
Born date February 9, 1940
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“Go away," he said. "Go away. I wish you had never come here. I wish I had never heard of the Light and the Dark, and your damned old Merriman and his rhymes. If I had your golden harp now I would throw it in the sea. I am not a part of your stupid quest anymore, I don't care what happens to it. And Cafall was never a part of it either, or a part of your pretty pattern. He was my dog, and I loved him more than anything in the world, and now he is dead. Go away.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Grey King
“If I can make you unhappy, then I can make you happy as well.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Born in Fire
“that arctic blast you're feeling? it's the chill coming off my cold shoulder”
― Michele Jaffe, quote from Bad Kitty
“Don’t play that game with me, Acheron. Tell me what I need to know! (Xypher)
Nice tone. We should rent you out to record Halloween albums. (Acheron)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Dream Chaser
“What is important is that you get your house in order at each stage of the journey so that you can proceed. “If some day it be given to you to pass into the inner temple, you must leave no enemies behind.”—de Lubicz For example, if you never got on well with one of your parents and you have left that parent behind on your journey in such a way that the thought of that parent arouses anger or frustration or self-pity or any emotion . . . you are still attached. You are still stuck. And you must get that relationship straight before you can finish your work. And what, specifically, does “getting it straight” mean? Well, it means re-perceiving that parent, or whoever it may be, with total compassion . . . seeing him as a being of the spirit, just like you, who happens to be your parent . . . and who happens to have this or that characteristic, and who happens to be at a certain stage of his evolutionary journey. You must see that all beings are just beings . . . and that all the wrappings of personality and role and body are the coverings. Your attachments are only to the coverings, and as long as you are attached to someone else’s covering you are stuck, and you keep them stuck, in that attachment. Only when you can see the essence, can see God, in each human being do you free yourself and those about you. It’s hard work when you have spent years building a fixed model of who someone else is to abandon it, but until that model is superceded by a compassionate model, you are still stuck. In India they say that in order to proceed with one’s work one needs one’s parents’ blessings. Even if the parent has died, you must in your heart and mind, re-perceive that relationship until it becomes, like every one of your current relationships, one of light. If the person is still alive you may, when you have proceeded far enough, revisit and bring the relationship into the present. For, if you can keep the visit totally in the present, you will be free and finished. The parent may or may not be . . . but that is his karmic predicament. And if you have been truly in the present, and if you find a place in which you can share even a brief eternal moment . . . this is all it takes to get the blessing of your parent! It obviously doesn’t demand that the parent say, “I bless you.” Rather it means that he hears you as a fellow being, and honors the divine spark within you. And even a moment in the Here and Now . . . a single second shared in the eternal present . . . in love . . . is all that is required to free you both, if you are ready to be freed. From then on, it’s your own individual karma that determines how long you can maintain that high moment.”
― Ram Dass, quote from Be Here Now
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