3
" And new physical problems are arising almost daily. I'm getting problems from a painful trapped nerve in my shoulder, where my rucksack strap has been pinching it, and I can't straighten my arm above shoulder level - soon I will be limping like Richard III. By now my back is covered with eczema, the result of a perpetually sodden shirt and rucksack pressed against it day after day in this heat. In one place my pack has rubbed a painful hole in my skin through the eczema; carrying my rucksack was unpleasant before, but now it is purgatory. This eczema must be partly due to eating bad food for so long - I never had this problem at home. I'm expecting my teeth and hair to start falling out before long, and I've got more or less a permanent acid indigestion from eating so much junk. Week after week I've lived on lukewarm Coca-Cola, stale buns and doughnuts, slurps, green bananas, powdered milk and far too many cigarettes. With all the rubbishy food and sugar soft drinks I've been consuming, I'll see the east coast through a hypoglycaemic haze. "
6
" Love is the great intangible. In our nightmares, we can create beasts out of pure emotion. Hate stalks the streets with dripping fangs, fear flies down narrow alleyways on leather wings, and jealousy spins sticky webs across the sky. In daydreams, we can maneuver with poise, foiling an opponent, scoring high on fields of glory while crowds cheer, cutting fast to the heart of an adventure. But what dream state is love? Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate –love commands a vast army of moods. Hoping for victory, limping from the latest skirmish, lovers enter the arena once again. Sitting still, we are as daring as gladiators. "
― Diane Ackerman , A Natural History of Love
7
" He would like to be capable of writing as he thinks, quickly, without effort, the word as agile and dynamic as athletes in a race, jumping over hurdles, one after the other, go, go, go, flying towards the finishing post, faster than the disgust limping behind him. "
― Filippo Bologna , The Parrots
9
" The Sad Boy
Ay, his old mother was a glad one.
And his poor old father was a mad one.
The two begot this sad one.
Alas for the single shoe
The Sad Boy pulled out of the rank green pond,
Fishing for fairies
On the prankish advice
Of two disagreeable lovers of small boys.
Pity the unfortunate Sad Boy
With a single magic shoe
And a pair of feet
And an extra foot
With no shoe for it.
This was how the terrible hopping began
That wore the Sad Boy thin and through
To his only shoe
And started the great fright in the provinces above Brent
Where the Sad Boy became half of himself
To match the beautiful boot
He had dripped from the green pond.
Wherever he went weeping and hopping
And stamping and sobbing,
Pounding a whole earth into a half-heaven,
Things split where he stood
Into the left side for the left magic,
Into no side for the missing right boot.
Mercy be to the Sad Boy
Scamping exasperated
After a wide boot
To double the magic
Of a limping foot.
Mercy to the melancholy folk
On the Sad Boy's right.
It was not for want of wandering
He lost the left boot too
And the knowledge of his left side,
But because one awful Sunday
This dear boy dislimbed
Went back to the old pond
To fish up another shoe
And was quickly (being too light for his line)
Fished in.
Gracious how he kicks now
All the little ripples up!
The quiet population of Brent has settled down,
And the perfect surface of the famous pond
Is slightly pocked, marked with three signs,
For visitors come to fish for souvenirs,
Where the Sad Boy went in
And his glad mother and his mad father after him. "
― , The Poems of Laura Riding: A Newly Revised Edition of the 1938/1980 Collection
19
" Hold on to me!” Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them,Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away.
“Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods,” he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. “So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stakeout the outer gates. Should have known you’d be here trying to catch her yourself.”
Agatha gaped at him dumbly.
“Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone,” Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress.
“Where is she?” Agatha croaked. “Is she safe?”
“Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either,” Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies.
“Put me down,” she sputtered—
“More bad ideas from the princess.”
“Put me down!”Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away.
“I’m not a princess!” she snapped, fixing her collar.
“If you say so,” the prince said, eyes drifting downward.Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring— Tedros smiled.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .”She fainted in his arms.
“Definitely a princess,” he said. "
― Soman Chainani , The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil, #1)
