bookbites

on desire:

“for myself, i prefer to hold my desires just out of reach of appetite, to keep myself honed and sharp. i want the keen edge of longing.” – jeanette winterson, art & lies

“he longed desperately to halt the gracefully drifting nonsense of life with his mind and transform it into sense.” – hermann hesse, goldmund & narcissus

on time:

“there is so little time. this is all the time i’ve got. this is mine, this small parcel of years, that threatens to spill over on to the pavement and be lost among careless feet. lost.” – jeanette winterson, art & lies

“i think it may have been the interminable repetitions in my life which finally broke me down.” – graham greene, a sort of life

“for most of us, there is only the unattended
moment, the moment in and out of time,
the distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
the wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
that it is not heard at all, but you are the music
while the music lasts.” – t.s. eliot, four quartets: the dry salvages

on words:

“perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone’s gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.” – italo calvino, invisible cities