1
" Music is crucial. Beyond no way can I overstress this fact. Let's say you're southbound on the interstate, cruising alone in the middle lane, listening to AM radio. Up alongside comes a tractor trailer of logs or concrete pipe, a tie-down strap breaks, and the load dumps on top of your little sheetmetal ride. Crushed under a world of concrete, you're sandwiched like so much meat salad between layers of steel and glass. In that last, fast flutter of your eyelids, you looking down that long tunnel toward the bright God Light and your dead grandma walking up to hug you--do you want to be hearing another radio commercial for a mega, clearance, closeout, blow-out liquidation car-stereo sale? "
― Chuck Palahniuk , Rant
2
" Perhaps swimming was dancing under the water, he thought. To swim under lily pads seeing their green slender stalks wavering as you passed, to swim under upraised logs past schools of sunfish and bluegills, to swim through reed beds past wriggling water snakes and miniature turtles, to swim in small lakes, big lakes, Lake Michigan, to swim in small farm ponds, creeks, rivers, giant rivers where one was swept along easefully by the current, to swim naked alone at night when you were nineteen and so alone you felt like you were choking every waking moment, having left home for reasons more hormonal than rational; reasons having to do with the abstraction of the future and one's questionable place in the world of the future, an absurdity not the less harsh for being so widespread. "
― Jim Harrison , The Man Who Gave Up His Name
3
" oxygen
Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine
stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a
stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your
right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a
beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know
where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except
everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles
to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air. "
― Mary Oliver , Thirst
4
" Actually, this is a poem my father once showed me, a long time ago. It has been bastardized many times, in many ways, but this is the original:The Cold Within Six men trapped by happenstance,in bleak and bitter coldEach possessed a stick of wood,or so the story's told. Their dying fire in need of logs,the first man held his back For of the faces round the fire,he noticed one was black. One man looking cross the way, saw one not of his churchAnd could not bring himself to givethe fire his stick of birch. The third one sat in tattered clothes,he gave his coat a hitchWhy should his log be put to useto warm the idle rich?The rich man just sat back and thoughtof the wealth he had in store And how to keep what he had earnedfrom the lazy, shiftless poor.The black man's face bespoke revengeas the fire passed from his sight,For all he saw in his stick of woodwas a chance to spite the white.And the last man of this forlorn groupdid naught except for gain,Giving only to those who gave,was how he played the gameThe logs held tight, in death's stillhands,was proof of human sinThey didn't die from the cold without,they died from the cold within. "
5
" The Cold Within" Six humans trapped in happenstanceIn dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story's told.The first woman held hers backFor of the faces around the fire,She noticed one was black.The next man looking across the waySaw not one of his church,And couldn't bring himself to giveThe fire his stick of birch.The third one sat in tattered clothesHe gave his coat a hitch,Why should his log be put to use,To warm the idle rich?The rich man just sat back and thoughtOf the wealth he had in store,And how to keep what he had earned,From the lazy, shiftless poor.The black man's face bespoke revengeAs the fire passed from sight,For all he saw in his stick of woodWas a chance to spite the white.The last man of this forlorn groupDid naught except for gain,Giving only to those who gave,Was how he played the game.The logs held tight in death's still handsWas proof of human sin,They didn't die from the cold without,They died from the cold within. "
6
" Clara shrugged and immediately knew her betrayal of Peter. In one easy movement she'd distanced herself from his bad behavior, even thought she herself was responsible for it. Just before everyone had arrived, she'd told Peter about her adventure with Gamache. Animated and excited she'd gabbled on about her box and the woods and the exhilarating climb up the ladder to the blind. But her wall of words hid from her a growing quietude. She failed to notice his silence, his distance, until it was too late and he'd retreated all the way to his icy island. She hated that place. From it he stood and stared, judged, and lobbed shards of sarcasm.
'You and your hero solve Jane's death?'
'I thought you'd be pleased,' she half lied. She actually hadn't thought at all, and if she had, she probably could have predicted his reaction. But since he was comfortably on his Inuk island, she'd retreat to hers, equipped with righteous indignation and warmed by moral certitude. She threw great logs of 'I'm right, you're an unfeeling bastard' onto the fire and felt secure and comforted. "
― Louise Penny , Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1)
9
" By just living one’s life, sadness accumulates here and there, be it in the sheets hung out in the sun to dry, the toothbrushes in the bathroom, and the history logs of the mobile phone…In the last several years, I have forged ahead without any regard, just to touch what I cannot reach. Without understanding the sources from which this menacing thought surged forth from, I continued working. When I at last noticed, my heart had already become hard from the gradual loss of its youthful vitality. And on certain morning, when I at last came to an earnest realization that I had lost everything that was beautiful, I knew I was at my limits and quit the company. "
― Makoto Shinkai
15
" The bones said death was comin', and the bones never lied.
Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grand pere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across ever day.
She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he'd done all those years ago.
What he'd brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands.
What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five.
What had led Eva's brother, Antoine, to drown in the bayou only a half mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind.
What stalked Eva now. "
― Susannah Sandlin , Wild Man's Curse
18
" When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow,And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl,To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. "
20
" The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor.
But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals.
You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs.
My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species. "
― Matt Ridley , The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves