''I saw her kiss him,' said Susan. 'I looked between the leaves and saw her. She danced in flecked diamonds light as dust. And I am squat, Bernard, I am short. I have eyes that look close to the ground and see insects in the grass. The yellow warmth in my side turned to stone when I saw Jinny kiss Louis. I shall eat grass and die in a ditch in the ( Read more... )

'When God had made The Man, he had made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And ( Read more... )

'And sometimes when you're on you're really fucking on and your friends they sing along and they love you. But the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap and it teases you for weeks in its absence. But you'll fight and you'll make it through, you'll fake it if you have to and you'll show up to work with a smile. You'll be better, you ( Read more... )

'There was in those days, wrote a monk of Westminster, death without sorrow, marriage without affection, want without poverty, flight without escape.'
- Simon Schama, A History of Britain, Part I

'Poor little thing, she was keeping this student's letter as a treasure, and had run to fetch her only treasure not wishing me to leave without knowing that she, too, was loved honestly and sincerely, that she, too, was spoken to respectfully. Most likely the letter was doomed simply to lie in a box without consequences. But what matter; I'm sure ( Read more... )

i like my body when it is with your ( Read more... )

'By standing still we are partaking in our own degeneration.'
- Heather

'I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to ( Read more... )

'Your twisting is done - you have the last thread of my heart. I wonder: when the thread grows slack, will you feel it?'
- Affinity by Sarah Waters

(Hamminess shouldn't be this sad)

'The only way for me to handle what is happening is to move myself forward into someone who has handled it. As yet that person does not exist. She has not those resources. I will have to make her as Jewish legend tells how God made the first man: by moulding a piece of dirt and breathing life into it. The dirt I have in plenty. The life I will have ( Read more... )