Quotations
"Aunt Marigold, who had never had any children of her own, knew more mothercraft than many women who had. She had not only the seeing eye but the understanding heart as well." -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"When I was a child I told my mother everything. After she died I learned that it was better to keep some things to myself. My father represented authority, which meant — to me — that he could not also represent understanding." -William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

"They'd know it was me. My mother always know it's me. She's psychic."
-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"So this is his mother.
This small woman.
The gray-eared procreator.

The boat in which, years ago,
he sailed to shore.

The boat from which he stepped
into the world,
into un-eternity.

Genetrix of the man
with whom I leap through fire.

So this is she, the only one
who didn't take him
finished and complete.

She herself pulled him
into the skin I know,
bound him to the bones
that are hidden from me.

She herself raised
the gray eyes
that he raised to me.

So this is she, his Alpha.
Why has he shown her to me.

Born.
So he was born, too.
Born like everyone else.
Like me, who will die.

The son of an actual woman.
A new arrival from the body's depths.
A voyager to Omega.

Subject to
his own absence,
on every front,
at any moment.

He hits his head
against a wall
that won't give way forever.

His movements
dodge and parry
the universal verdict.

I realized
that his journey was already halfway over.

But he didn't tell me that,
no.

'This is my mother.'
was all he said." -Wisława Szymborska, "Born" (Translated by Stanisław Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Quotation
"It was a fairy night, with eerie pixie voices in the bracken." -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

Quotations
"Emily came downstairs laggingly, feeling that all the colour and music had somehow gone out of life, and that it stretched before her in unbroken greyness. Ten minutes later she was encompassed by rainbows and the desert of her future had blossomed like the rose." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"'There are times when I hate life. Other times again when I love it fiercely with an agonized realization of how beautiful it is — or might be…'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'There! I feel better for that little outburst of discontent. It has ejected something from my system. I know that into everybody's life must come some days of depression and discouragement when all things in life seem to lose savour. The sunniest day has its clouds; but one must not forget that the sun is there all the time.
How easy it is to be a philosopher — on paper!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'Life never seems the same to me as it used to. Something is gone. I am not unhappy. But life seems a sort of negative affair. I enjoy it on the whole and have many beautiful moments. I have success — at least a sort of success — in growing measure and a keen appreciation of all the world and the times offer for delight and interest. But underneath it all is the haunting sense of emptiness.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Quotations
"'I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me…'" -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"'As I read it I feel humbled and insignificant — which is good for me. I say to myself, "You poor, pitiful, little creature, did you ever imagine you could write? If so, your delusion is now stripped away from you for ever and you behold yourself in your naked paltriness." But I shall recover from this state of mind — and believe again that I can write a little — and go on cheerfully producing sketches and poems until I can do better.'" - L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"'…I know it's good for me. Horrible things always are good for you, I suppose. After you've been killed a few times you don't mind it. But the first time one does — squirm.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It's very nice to have one friend like that, though too many wouldn't be good for you.'"
-L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"I used to read everything, Professor, I read all the time.  Now all I read is poetry.  Poetry is the one thing that isn't contaminated, the one thing that isn't part of the game.  I don't know if you follow me, Professor.  Only poetry — and let me be clear, only some of it — is good for you, only poetry isn't shit." -Roberto Bolaño, 2666 (Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

"She said gently: 'My dear, I'm trying to be good for you!'" -Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun

Quotations
"Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort." -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'I — I meant well. You must believe that, I meant well.'
Such sad words, Poirot thought, some of the saddest words in the world." -Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party

"…exclaimed Murray rapturously, not meaning a syllable of it, but devoutly believing he did." -L.M. Montgomery, "At Five O'Clock in the Morning"

"It appeared that nobody ever said a thing they meant, or ever talked of a feeling they felt, but that was what music was for." -Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

Quotation
"'…hate's got to be a disease with me.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Quotations
"…no person, no matter how vivid an imagination he may have, can invent anything half so droll as the freaks and fancies that originate in the lively brains of little people." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Men

"'You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.'" -Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

"'Imagination is a very dangerous thing…'" -Agatha Christie, "The Tuesday Night Club"

"'The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion.'" -Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

"'It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it?'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

"But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it?" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"'Imagination, Miss Vinrace; use your imagination; that's where you young Liberals fail. Conceive the world as a whole.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

Quotation
"'Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Quotation
"…but very different from the old intimacy and understanding comradeship with Ilse. Formerly it used to be a chummy jest between them that they could walk or sit for hours together and say no word and yet feel that they had had a splendid time. There were no such silences now: when they did happen to be alone together they both chattered gaily and shallowly, as if each were secretly afraid that there might come a moment for the silence that betrays." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

Quotation
"…love is something that cannot be generated by any intellectual rule o' thumb."
-L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Quotations
"'...between them was a fathomless abyss which thought itself could not cross.'" -L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

"When they turned, Pelletier and Espinoza saw an older woman in a white blouse and black skirt, a woman with a figure like Marlene Dietrich, as Pelletier would say much later, a woman who despite her years was still as strong willed as ever, a woman who didn't cling to the edge of the abyss but plunged into it with curiosity and elegance. A woman who plunged into the abyss sitting down." -Roberto Bolaño, 2666 (Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

"He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools!' he cried, and was gone." -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

"To feel anything strongly was to create an abyss between oneself and others who feel strongly perhaps but differently." -Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

Quotation
"Secrets are generally terrible.  Beauty is not often hidden — only ugliness and deformity." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

Quotations
"'November is the most disagreeable month in the whole ear,' said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.
'That's the reason I was born in it,' observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose.
'If something very pleasant should happen now, we should think it a delightful month,' said Beth, who took a hopeful view of everything, even November." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"November was stingy of its sunshine that year: raw winds blew through the bare, silver-branched maple grove and the Hollow was almost constantly filled with mist…not a gracious, eerie thing like a fog but what Dad called 'dank, dark, depressing, dripping, drizzly mist.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

"'There are two adjectives that are never separated in regard to a November day — "dull" and "gloomy". They were wedded together in the dawn of language and it is not for me to divorce them now.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"October drifted into November and the chill, drear days came.  To Cecily the whole outer world seemed the dismal reflex of her pain-bitten heart." -L.M. Montgomery, "The Promise of Lucy Ellen"

Random Musing

Quotations
"'That doesn't sound very attractive,' laughed Anne. 'I like people to have a little nonsense about them.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

"Well, everybody has, or should have, a pet nonsense in her life. I did not think mine was any sillier than some others I knew, and to myself I admitted that it was very sweet." -L.M. Montgomery, "The Letters"

"'I don't know so much about nonsense, but there was nothing light-hearted in their romance: they came together under the shadow of a life's disaster, like knight and maiden meeting to exchange vows amongst haunted ruins. The starlight was good enough for that story, a light so fain and remote that it cannot resolve shadows into shapes, and show the other shore of a stream.'" -Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

"'For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.'" -A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

"'All talk would be nonsense, I suppose, if it were written down,' she said, stirring her coffee.
Maggie stopped the machine for a moment and smiled.
'And even if it isn't,' she said." -Virginia Woolf, The Years

Quotations
"…and all the time feeling like the miserable spirit in a ghost story she had once read who had a live coal in its breast instead of a heart." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'I am surrounded by bitter fancies and unbidden ghosts — the little spectral joys of the past.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'I want rest — rest,' said Mrs. Kent, laughing wildly. 'Can you find that for me? Don’t you know I'm a ghost, Emily? I died years ago. I walk in the dark.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"She said: 'I've met a ghost. That's what it is.'
'A ghost, Mademoiselle?'
'Yes.'
'The ghost of what? Or of whom?'
'Oh, the ghost of myself.'
Poirot asked gently: 'Was it a painful ghost?'
'Unexpectedly painful. It took me back, you know.'"
-Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun

"'I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'" -Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

"Now I know why the ghosts howl and haunt the tidelands. It's not because they want to scare you or steal your soul. They just want to be Seen." -Jennifer L. Holm, The Trouble With May Amelia

Quotation
"'He was not worthy of remembrance — and yet I do remember him. I can't forget him — and I hate him all the more for it — for having entered so deeply into my life that I could not cast him out when I knew him unworthy. It is humiliating.'" -L.M. Montgomery, "Miss Sally's Letter"

Quotation
"'Oh, beauty!' whispered Emily, passionately, lifting her hands to the stars. 'What would I have done without you all these years?'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Quotation
"'But you are a fairy yourself — or you wouldn't be able to find fairyland. You can't buy a ticket there, you know. Either the fairies themselves give you your passport at your christening — or they don't. That is all there is to it.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

Quotations
"'If we don't chase things — sometimes the things following us can catch up.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"'If you run after a man he'll run away. It's instinct. We have to run when anything chases us.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time — when pursued like a bandit — will heave like one; always remaining one county or room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you." -Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Quotation
"For the fairies dwell only in the kingdom of Happiness; having no souls they cannot enter the kingdom of Sorrow." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon