1
" We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on this planet's crust. As adults we are almost all adept at waking up. We have so mastered the transition we make a hundred times a day, as, like so many will-less dolphins, we plunge and surface, lapse and emerge. We live half our waking lives and all of our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall. Useless, I say. Valueless, I might add — until someone hauls their wealth up to the surface and into the wide-awake city, in a form that people can use. "
― Annie Dillard , Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
2
" So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.
Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.
And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.
Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.
Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.
The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.
Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.
But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.
I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes. "
― Pablo Neruda , Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
5
" Nick bumps my shoulder with his, playfully. He kicks up some extra snow on purpose, whishing it onto my knees.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” I tell him.
“Really?”
“Especially with that doggy breath.”
He scoops up some snow, makes it into a ball, bounces his hand up and down. “Take that back.”
I giggle. “Nope.”
I bend down to grab some snow and topple headfirst. The cold of it bites into my cheeks. I try to push myself up, but I can’t. I’m all awkward and clumsy with the snowshoes on.
Nick laughs.
I struggle some more.
He grabs me under my arms and hauls me up. Smiling, he sticks out his tongue, and with tiny little movements starts licking the snow off my cheeks. It should be disgusting. It’s not. It’s all warm, and good feeling, and amazing. I close my eyes and let him.
“You smell good,” he whispers.
“I haven’t showered.”
“Doesn’t matter, you smell good.”
His voice, sensual and warm, mellows me.
Our lips touch and part, touch again. I breathe him in. He moves his face away a little and studies me. I smile. I can’t help it.
“I like you,” I say. “A lot. Even with the whole werewolf thing.”
He smiles back. “I like you too.”
“A lot?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, leaning in for another kiss. “A wicked lot. "
― Carrie Jones , Need (Need, #1)
6
" Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'. "
― Chip Kidd , The Learners
