81
" And if Francoise then, inspired like a poet with a flood of confused reflections upon bereavement, grief, and family memories, were to plead her inability to rebut my theories, saying: " I don't know how to espress (sic) myself" - I would triumph over her with an ironical and brutal common sense worthy of Dr. Percepied; and if she went on: " All the same she was a geological (sic) relation; there is always the respect due to your geology (sic)," I would shrug my shoulders and say: " It is really very good of me to discuss the matter with an illiterate old woman who cannot speak her own language," adopting, to deliver judgment on Francoise, the mean and narrow outlook of the pedant, whom those who are most contemptuous of him in the impartiality of their own minds are only too prone to copy when they are obliged to play a part upon the vulgar stage of life. "
89
" Death, like fiction, is brutal in its symmetry. Take this story and strip it down -all the way back- until you are left with two points. Two dots on a vast, blank canvas, separeted by a sea of white. Here, we have come to the first point, where the batj is drawn and the hand is reachinh for the razor blade. I will meet you at the next, by the axle of a screaming wheel, the revolution of a clock, the closing of an orbit. "
― Lang Leav , Sad Girls
90
" What we perceive as dejection over the futility of life is sometimes greed, which the monastic tradition perceives as rooted in a fear of being vulnerable in a future old age, so that one hoards possessions in the present. But most often our depression is unexpressed anger, and it manifests itself as the sloth of disobedience, a refusal to keep up the daily practices that would keep us in good relationship to God and to each other. For when people allow anger to build up inside, they begin to perform daily tasks resentfully, focusing on the others as the source of their troubles. Instead of looking inward to find the true reason for their sadness - with me , it is usually a fear of losing an illusory control - they direct it outward, barreling through the world, impatient and even brutal with those they encounter, especially those who are closest to them. "
― Kathleen Norris , The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women's Work
97
" Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
Teeth gnashing from a brutal feast
Wolfing down with others; consuming every bite
Eating every poison laid before my sight
I dined upon Iniquity’s endless shelf
Blindly feeding, greedily…on myself
Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
Expiring with every taste of yeast
Belly puffed and sour with death
A haunting shutter with every breath
Full of nothing but vanity
Dipped in pleasure and tragedy
Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
As the West is far from the East
I charted the lust of mine own eyes
Thus, in my folly…I was sure to die
My soul knew nothing of sacrifice
Instead I danced with every vice
Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
You found me broken and utterly fleeced
Naked, abandoned and truly alone
You nurtured the wounds to which you sewn
You gave me bread, You sang me a song
And touched my wounds with a loving balm
Oh, I was but a wounded Beast
Yet, You taught me wisdom’s leash
So I walk with you…dawn through night
Quenched by your fount of love and light
No darkness, no hate not a selfish bone
Can feed this fiend that You’ve atoned
Oh, I was, but a wounded Beast!
~Jason Neville Versey "
― Jason Versey