Post a random quote from a book you're reading

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"To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist."

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter

There are basically two kinds of philosophy. One’s called Prickles, the other’s called Goo. And prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical. They like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague. For example, in physics, prickly people believe that the ultimate constituents of matter are particles. Goo people believe it’s waves. And in philosophy, prickly people are logical positivists and goo people are idealists. And they’re always arguing with each other, but what they don’t realize is that neither one can take his position without the other person. Because you wouldn’t know you advocated prickles unless there was somebody else advocating goo. You wouldn’t know what a prickle was unless you knew what goo was. Because life is not either prickles or goo, it’s gooey prickles and prickly goo.

~Alan Watts ☯️

To Ioanthe

Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
Not in those visions to the heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed:
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek
To paint those charms which varied as they beamed—
To such as see thee not my words were weak;
To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" - Lord Byron

"I begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving; I have always had so much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make myself a world outside it, as men do."


George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss

"Tito and Romola never jarred, never remonstrated
with each other. They were too hopelessly alienated in their inner life
ever to have that contest which is an effort towards agreement."

Romola - George Eliot

"Hester tried to smile when she recalled this, but could not, her heart being too sore, her whole being shaken. He thought so too perhaps, everybody thought so, and she alone, an involuntary rebel, would be compelled to accept the yoke which, to other women, was a simple matter, and their natural law. Why, then, was she made unlike others, or why was it so?"


Margaret Oliphant - Hester (1883)

"The evening closed in with the most glorious sunset ever witnessed. The castle on the cliff stood in proud glory gilded by the rays of the declining sun. The distant ships glittered like burnished gold; the little boats near the beach heaved on the ebbing tide, inviting occupants. The view was grand beyond description. Anne was drawn in her easy chair to the window, to enjoy the scene with us. Her face became illumined almost as much as the glorious scene she gazed upon. Little was said, for it was plain that her thoughts were driven by the imposing view before her to penetrate forwards to the regions of unfading glory."


This was Anne Brontë's last night on this earth - Sunday 27th of May 1849.

Take Courage and Rest in Peace

"When one Esquimau meets another, do the two, as an invariable rule,
ask after each other's health? is it inherent in all human nature to
make this obliging inquiry? Did any reader of this tale ever meet
any friend or acquaintance without asking some such question, and did
anyone ever listen to the reply?"

The Warden - Anthony Trollope

I'm glad to see that a famous 19th Century author highlighted the hypocrisy of ritualised small talk.

"We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more
than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay,
we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship, but we
desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which
ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be
able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for
escape which is the common consequence of common sermons."

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope

The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.


Sylvia Plath, "Edge" (1963)

Men are men, but man is a woman.

-Little, Big
By John Crowley
(Attributed to Chesterton)

Evening by evening
Among the Brookside rushes,
Laura bow'd her head to hear,
Lizzie veil'd her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and fingertips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
"We must not look at Goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon the soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"



"Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti (1862)