Brian Massumi

“When I think of my body and ask what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It moves. It feels. In fact it does both at the same time.”

Parables for the Virtual
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Theodor Adorno

We can tell whether we are happy by the sound of the wind. It warns the unhappy man of the fragility of his house, hounding him from shallow sleep and violent dreams. To the happy man it is the song of his protectedness: its furious howling concedes that it has power over him no longer.

Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, 1974
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Estória do Gato e da Lua

Mary Gaitskill

She was deliberately morbid in all her gestures, sensitive, arrogant, vulnerable to flattery. She veered between extravagant outbursts of opinion and sudden, uncertain halts, during which she seemed to look to him for approval. She was in love with the idea of intelligence, and she overestimated her own. Her sense of the world, though she presented it aggressively, could be, he sensed, snatched out from under her with little or no trouble. She said, 'I hope you are a savage.'

A Romantic Weekend
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Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintences, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

Nature
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Emily Dickinson

Good Morning -- Midnight --
I'm coming Home --
Day -- got tired of Me --
How could I -- of Him?

Sunshine was a sweet place --
I liked to stay --
But Morn -- didn't want me -- now --
So -- Goodnight -- Day!

I can look -- can't I --
When the East is Red?
The Hills -- have a way -- then --
That puts the Heart -- abroad --

You -- are not so fair -- Midnight --
I chose -- Day --
But -- please take a little Girl --
He turned away!

Poem 425 

- 

Edward Thomas

I have come to the borders of sleep, 
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight, 
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose. 

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink, 
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink. 

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter, 
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter 
Than tasks most noble. 

There is not any book 
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now 
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone, 
I know not how. 

The tall forest towers; 
Its cloudy foliage lowers 
Ahead, shelf above shelf; 
Its silence I hear and obey 
That I may lose my way 
And myself.

Lights Out, 1916 

George Bernard Shaw

'So let us have no more nonsense about the Prussian wolf and the British lamb...we cannot shout for years that we are boys of the bulldog breed and then suddenly pose as gazelles.'

Common Sense About the War, 1914
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James Ellroy

'You musta caught too many in the ring, sonny, 'cause your seabag's leaky. Einstein couldn't remember the names of all Betty's boyfriends, and my name ain't Albert.'

The Black Dahlia
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Michael Sheen

In the supermarket today I thought I saw Michael Sheen browsing the yoghurt drinks. He had on a business suit and dark glasses.

'Nice one, Michael,' I thought. 'Executive disguise. Nice.'

Later when I walked past him again I realised that he had a debilitating limp on one side. Either it wasn't actually Michael Sheen, or he is going to pretty horrific lengths to travel incognito.

As I was standing in the queue to pay with two jars of chutney in my hands ('made', one boasted, 'with genuine apple cider!') the man behind me said, 'that's a lot of chutney for someone so small.'

'Never underestimate the importance of chutney,' I replied.