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1 " I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly . . . I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try. "
― Marilynne Robinson , Gilead
2 " He was a musician of the best nature, with guitar string fingertips and soft flute lips that could tighten in a trumpet's purse. Every movement was perfect, every breath filled with purpose. Whether close or open, his eyes seeped ambition and his body burned with chaotic passion. I was his instrument and he played me so well. His fingers fashioned a tune of ecstasy while his lips felt the reed shudders of my skin. He stole my breath and made it his own, using my lips to create his climactic song. A symphony of electricity and orgasmic bliss, he played me so well his fingers never did miss. Half-circles and hooks with my parted lips as his speaker, I never knew another musician so ruthlessly eager. To finish his song, to hit every note, elongating the melody of every sound from the depths of my throat. He was ambitious, pushing my limits, tearing my reservations and destroying my thresholds, all I could do was phase in and out, my ears ringing from the ballad I was made to produce. "
3 " That was the ballad of suburbia: give me loud to drown out the silence. "
― Stephanie Kuehnert , Ballads of Suburbia
4 " When she had arranged her household affairs, she came to the library and bade me follow her. Then, with the mirror still swinging against her knees, she led me through the garden and the wilderness down to a misty wood. It being autumn, the trees were tinted gloriously in dusky bars of colouring. The rowan, with his amber leaves and scarlet berries, stood before the brown black-spotted sycamore; the silver beech flaunted his golden coins against my poverty; firs, green and fawn-hued, slumbered in hazy gossamer. No bird carolled, although the sun was hot. Marina noted the absence of sound, and without prelude of any kind began to sing from the ballad of the Witch Mother: about the nine enchanted knots, and the trouble-comb in the lady's knotted hair, and the master-kid that ran beneath her couch. Every drop of my blood froze in dread, for whilst she sang her face took on the majesty of one who traffics with infernal powers. As the shade of the trees fell over her, and we passed intermittently out of the light, I saw that her eyes glittered like rings of sapphires.(" The Basilisk" ) "
