“I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.”
“...whatever/ returns from oblivion/ returns to find a voice.”
“I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing...”
“the powerful are always lied to since the weak are always driven to panic”
“End of Winter”
Over the still world, a bird calls
waking solitary among black boughs.
You wanted to be born; I let you be born.
When has my grief ever gotten
in the way of your pleasure?
Plunging ahead
into the dark and light at the same time
eager for sensation
as though you were some new thing, wanting
to express yourselves
all brilliance, all vivacity
never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—
you won’t hear it in the other world,
not clearly again,
not in birdcall or human cry,
not the clear sound, only
persistent echoing
in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye—
the one continuous line
that binds us to each other.”
“Remember that time you made the wish?
I make a lot of wishes.
The time I lied to you
about the butterfly. I always wondered
what you wished for.
What do you think I wished for?
I don't know. That I'd come back,
that we'd somehow be together in the end.
I wished for what I always wish for.
I wished for another poem.”
“Oh who owns the school? Oh who owns the school? Oh who owns the school? the people saaaayyyy. . . . Oh we own the school Oh we own the school ’Cause we are sixth graaaaders today!”
“There was another pause as Quentin stared at him, and then he said quietly, "It didn't happen up there. What happened twenty years ago."
"I know."
"You know a hell of a lot, don't you." It wasn't really a question.
Bishop smiled. "You think I'd try to recruit a new team member without knowing everything I could about him first? There won't be many secrets in the SCU, Quentin, that goes without saying. We're a unit of psychics. And from the telepaths who can pick up thoughts to the empaths who can pick up pain, we're going to eventually know pretty much everything there is to know about each other.”
“A dancer on break approached him. She smiled. Each tooth was angled in a different direction, as if her mouth were the masterwork of a mad orthodontist.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"You're really cute."
"I don't have any money."
She spun and walked away. Ah, romance.”
“Remember Who it is that has placed you in your present position; perhaps you have no home, perhaps you have experienced a reverse of fortune; no matter what! It is God who has willed it so, therefore look to Him for guidance and protection. —HINTS TO GOVERNESSES, BY ONE OF THEMSELVES, 1856”
“Momentarily forgetting how wind works, Lex tried spitting at him. This failed”
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