“The bare earth, plantless, waterless, is an immense puzzle. In the forests or beside rivers everything speaks to humans. The desert does not speak. I could not comprehend its tongue; its silence...”
Melancholic feeling
Melancholic Quotes — page 99 of 412
“The English countryside, its growth and its destruction, is a genuine and tragic theme.”
“Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.”
“If there is suffering, then it's best to accept it, because it won't go away just because you pretend it's not there. If there is joy, then it's best to accept that too, even though you're afraid it might end one day.”
“When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all casualties of life should say "I knew my riches were uncertain, that my friend was but a man." Such considerations would soon pacify us, because all our troubles proceed from their being unexpected.”
“Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.”
“One day he went away and I thought I'd die, but I didn't. And I said to myself: 'is that all there is to love?'”
“I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there.”
“Fame and fortune, how empty they can be.”
“Everything is pathology, except for indifference.”
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history.”
“Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow, a herb most bruised is woman.”
“The rustling of the silk is discontinued, Dust drifts over the courtyard, There is not sound of footfall, and the leaves Scurry into heaps and lie still, And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them: A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.”
“I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.”
“The greater your dreams, the more terrible your nightmares.”
“... even in houses commonly held to be 'booky' one finds, nine times out of ten, not a library but a book-dump.”
“Life's just a perpetual piecing together of broken bits.”
“We all come from dysfunctional families and these days I guess that's pretty normal.”
“Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find-nothing.”
“When he was dry, he believed it was alcohol he needed, but when he had a few drinks in him, he knew it was something else, possibly a woman; and when he had it all -- cash, booze, and a wife -- he couldn't be distracted from the great emptiness that was always falling through him and never hit the ground.”