Why do you look so sad?
Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings…
Category: Quotes
Someone said this
Last Lines – Dubliners
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
– The last line of The Dead in Dubliners by Joyce
Last Lines – The Unnameable
I’ll go on. You must say words, as long as there are any – until they find me, until they say me. (Strange pain, strange sin!) You must go on. Perhaps it’s done already. Perhaps they have said me already. Perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story. (That would surprise me, if it opens.)
It will be I? It will be the silence, where I am? I don’t know, I’ll never know: in the silence you don’t know.
You must go on.
I can’t go on.
I’ll go on.
– The last lines of Beckett’s, The Unnameable
It’s silly, but…
It’s silly, but I love you. I wanted to see you, to see if I’d want to see you.
– Breathless, 1960
It is Easy to Forget How Mysterious and Mighty Stories Are…
I’m aware that just posting quotes can seem rather trite but I stumbled across one today that seemed pertinent (seeing as my past few posts have been about books) because it concerns the power of stories. Not just the ones we read but the ones we tell ourselves and each other; the fabric of the tales we tell about our lives and our personal histories and how what we weave shapes not just our pasts but our future too. I thought it was thought-provoking and so here it is. It’s from Ben Okri’s book, Birds of Heaven:
“It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world…”
Larkin
Philip Larkin. When he wasn’t telling you how your mum and dad were responsible for all your ills (the polite way of putting it) he was writing some gorgeous poems. And some rather wise words too. He dealt with the gritty reality and imperfection of existence. He was unsparing and often accused of being glum, despite bearing an uncanny resemblance to the comedian Eric Morecambe. Who rarely seemed so. Glum that is. But I still love Larkin’s words. For the man who wrote this:
“The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong…”
Also wrote this:
“What will survive of us is love”
What greater last line of a poem exists? None that I know or can think of…
Aphorisms – Part II
memoryhouse 