“I have always longed to be part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water; to return to town a stranger. Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.”
― J.A. Baker, quote from The Peregrine
“Cold air rises from the ground as the sun goes down. The eye-burning clarity of the light intensifies. The southern rim of the sky glows to a deeper blue, to pale violet, to purple, then thins to grey. Slowly the wind falls, and the still air begins to freeze. The solid eastern ridge is black; it has a bloom on it like the dust on the skin of a grape. The west flares briefly. The long, cold amber of the afterglow casts clear black lunar shadows. There is an animal mystery in the light that sets upon the fields like a frozen muscle that will flex and wake at sunrise.”
― J.A. Baker, quote from The Peregrine
“Approach him across open ground with a steady unfaltering movement. Let your shape grow in size but do not alter its outline. Never hide yourself unless concealment is complete. Be alone. Shun the furtive oddity of man, cringe from the hostile eyes of farms. Learn to fear. To share fear is the greatest bond of all. The hunter must become the thing he hunts.”
― J.A. Baker, quote from The Peregrine
“And for the partridge there was the sun suddenly shut out, the foul flailing blackness spreading wings above, the roar ceasing, the blazing knives driving in, the terrible white face descending – hooked and masked and horned and staring-eyed. And then the back-breaking agony beginning, and snow scattering from scuffling feet, and snow filling the bill’s wide silent scream, till the merciful needle of the hawk’s beak notched in the straining neck and jerked the shuddering life away.
And for the hawk, resting now on the soft flaccid bulk of his prey, there was the rip and tear of choking feathers, and hot blood dripping from the hook of the beak, and rage dying slowly to a small hard core within.
And for the watcher, sheltered for centuries from such hunger and such rage, such agony and such fear, there is the memory of that sabring fall from the sky, and the vicarious joy of the guiltless hunter who kills only through his familiar, and wills him to be fed.”
― J.A. Baker, quote from The Peregrine
“When one says ‘ten o’clock’ or ‘three o’clock,’ this is not the grey and shrunken time of towns; it is the memory of a certain fulmination or declension of light that was unique to that time and that place on that day, a memory as vivid to the hunter as burning magnesium.”
― J.A. Baker, quote from The Peregrine
J.A. Baker
Born place: in Essex, England, The United Kingdom
Born date August 6, 1926
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“Jack stares at me blankly. ‘A what?’ he asks.
I choke back the laugh. ‘A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don’t seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jack asks, ‘A boy? She’s just a kid.’
I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. ‘She’s seventeen. She’s not a kid anymore.’
Jack looks like he’s about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. ‘If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I’m going to kill him,’ he says.
Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn’t require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Losing Lila
“هر كس به قدر عظمت آن چه با آن زورآزمايى كرد بزرگى يافت:
آن كس كه با جهان ستيز كرد با چيرگى بر جهان بزرگ شد؛
و آن كس كه با خويشتن نبرد كرد با چيرگى بر خويشتن بزرگ شد؛
امّا آن كس كه با خدا زورآزمايى كرد از همه بزرگ تر بود.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, quote from Fear and Trembling
“The other girl was fifteen, and she was expecting”
― Danielle Steel, quote from The Gift
“De la misma forma que una barra de hierro sometida a una llamapersistente se ablanda y dobla, sentía entonces que el metal de mi ánimo era gradualmenteablandado y doblado por las angustias que lo oprimían.”
― Alberto Moravia, quote from Contempt
“Krampus's voice trailed off, he glanced at Jesse. Jesse's head lay on his shoulder, his eyes closed; there came no sign of breath.
"It appears I am talking to myself." Krampus crossed his arms atop his chest and grunted.”
― Brom, quote from Krampus: The Yule Lord
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