I stammered. The stupidity of the phrase appalled me while I was trying to finish it, but the power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction.
from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Now i lay(with everywhere around)
Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
what a gently welcoming darkestness—
now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain
are given;and given is how beautifully snow)
now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)
something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Winter Dreams”
Submitted by thehiddenabyss.
Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy!
from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well.
—Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Submitted by builtbythedead.
At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face.
from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright.
—Annie Dillard, The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (via invisibleforeigner)
And in all they said— in their actions, in their looks, in their persons— could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence.
from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
