Home > Topic > my surroundings
1 " On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers I needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or of the passage of time. When at last I came to myself, it was almost eleven and I was quite exhausted: I knew I could not prudently continue without refreshment. "
― Sarah Caudwell , Thus Was Adonis Murdered (Hilary Tamar, #1)
2 " The thing that is changing...Is it my surroundings, or myself? "
― Mika Yamamori
3 " During the day I would move my body to the rhythm that only I could hear. I would try and connect with everything in my surroundings thinking that it somehow connected to who I was and was secretly sending me messages about what was in my soul. "
― The Hippie , Snowflake Obsidian: Memoir of a Cutter
4 " In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading. Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself .... But, no! I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not. "
― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
5 " My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. "
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
6 " There are no memories which I wanted to blot out of my mind. Always, I have been rather objective in my point of view, able to stand off and observe myself and my surroundings in a rather impersonal fashion. The actual sight of my first casualty was not nearly as bad as I had imagined. "
― , Five Lieutenants: The Heartbreaking Story of Five Harvard Men Who Led America to Victory in World War I
7 " I suspect that I’m not alone when it comes to altering my surroundings depending on how I feel at any particular moment: diving into a specific book, immersing inside a particular movie, devouring certain foods or humming to just the right song. "
8 " I tilt my face up and inhale, willing my surroundings to enter me somehow and to remind me how small I am. "
― Kaui Hart Hemmings , The Possibilities
