“In reality, there is no materialist like the artist, asking back from life the double and the wastage and the cost on what he puts out in emotional usury.”
“I hope I'll never get ambitious enough to try anything. It's so much nicer to be damned sure I could do it better than other people - and I might not could if I tried...”
“It was not, Zelda wrote, prosperity or the softness of life, or any instability that marred the war generation; it was a great emotional disappointment resulting from the fact that life moved in poetic gestures when they were younger and had since settled back into buffoonery.”
“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
“He fought for his very survival. If he fought dirty sometimes that does not diminish the fact that he refused to give up.”
“I was in love with a whirlwind and I must spin a net big enough to catch it,”
“Zelda was a creature who overflowed with activity, radiant with desire to take from life every chance her charm, youth, and intelligence provided so abundantly.”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen early morning in a terribly long time— The sun all yellow and red, like a huge luminous peach hanging on a black shadow-tree—just visible thru the mist—”
“Sweetheart, please don’t worry about me— I want to always be a help—You know I am all yours and love you with all my heart.”
“The Lord GOD, h who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, i “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”
“It's easy to assume people are conforming when we witness them all choosing the same option, but when we choose that very option ourselves, we have no shortage of perfectly good reasons for why we just happen to be doing the same thing as those other people; they mindlessly conform, but we mindfully choose. This doesn't mean that we're all conformists in denial. It means that we regularly fail to recognize that others' thoughts and behaviors are just as complex and varied as our own. Rather than being alone in a crowd of sheep, we're all individuals in sheep's clothing.”
“Grandfather’s Hands
Your grandfather’s hands were brown.
Your grandmother kissed each knuckle,
circled an island into his palm
and told him which parts they would share,
which part they would leave alone.
She wet a finger to draw where the ocean would be
on his wrist, kissed him there,
named the ocean after herself.
Your grandfather’s hands were slow but urgent.
Your grandmother dreamt them,
a clockwork of fingers finding places to own–
under the tongue, collarbone, bottom lip,
arch of foot.
Your grandmother names his fingers after seasons–
index finger, a wave of heat,
middle finger, rainfall.
Some nights his thumb is the moon
nestled just under her rib.
“Your grandparents often found themselves
in dark rooms, mapping out
each other’s bodies,
claiming whole countries
with their mouths.”
“One of the most generous gifts you can give your child is to study her temperament, and once you've learned it, work to accept it.”
“Another round later and I was undeniably drunk. I could feel my head swimming and was yelling "INK INK THAT'S THE NOISE A SQUID MAKES", while laughing hysterically at myself.”
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