Quotations
"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things." -Lemony Snicket, The Reptile Room

"…And if along with these should come
          The man I held as half-divine;
          Should strike a sudden hand in mind,
And ask a thousand things of home;

And I should tell him all my pain,
          And how my life had drooped of late,
          And he should sorrow o'er my state
And marvel what possessed my brain;

And I perceived no touch of change,
          No hint of death in all his frame,
          But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange." -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H.: 14"

Bosola: Doth not death fright you?
Duchess: Who would be afraid on 't,
Knowing to meet such excellent company
in th' other world? -John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

Random Musing
I think of you often so it's still very strange to realize another whole year has passed. Rest in peace Erica.

Quotations
"'Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"'Be merciful to the failures, Emily. Satirise wickedness if you must — but pity weakness.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

"'It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Jane of Lantern Hill

"'I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.  Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

"'He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business to live at all.'" -Joseph Conrad, "The Secret Sharer"

"'People aren't either wicked or noble,' the hook-handed man said. 'They're like chef salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.'" -Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

"'I'm afraid that's the wicked way of the world,' Dewey said, with a shake of his head. 'Everything's covered in smoke and mirrors…'" -Lemony Snicket, The Penultimate Peril

"He would argue with her about killing themselves; and explain how wicked people were; how he could see them making up lies as they passed in the street. He knew all their thoughts, he said; he knew everything. He knew the meaning of the world, he said." -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Quotation
"The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire. You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that happy things are tainted with sadness, the way smoke leaves its ashen colors and scents on everything it touches. And you may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down." -Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

Quotation
"Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is…" -Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy