Ned Hayes's Blog, page 115

"Humans evolved to crave story. This craving has, on the whole, been a good thing for us. Stories..."

“Humans evolved to crave story. This craving has, on the whole, been a good thing for us. Stories give us pleasure and instruction. They simulate worlds so we can live better in this one. They help bind us into communities and define us as cultures. Stories have been a great boon to out species.”

-

Jonathon Gottschal, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

(via bibliophileanon)

Photo

“April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries...

“April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. They wait all night with open eyes. Now, with the rain at dawn, their voices make melody. I turn back the reveled cloth of gold on my bed and walk to gaze beyond my glazed casement window. In the plaintive voices of the wood fowl, I imagine my mother calling to me, her words echoing across the years.”

—from the novel Sinful Folk 

"I think of the novelist as a houseguest. The poet is more someone who just appears."

““I think of the novelist as a houseguest. The poet is more someone who just appears.””

- Billy Collins (via theparisreview)

"The road is a river of ice, slick and unforgiving. A harsh...

"The road is a river of ice, slick and unforgiving. A harsh sweep of white iron, smooth as glass and cold enough to freeze any uncovered inch of flesh to the surface. Hillocks and haystacks rise up, isles in a smoking brume. Here and there snow has blown aside, revealing the line of the great white stone road that slices through the hills."

— from the novel Sinful Folk

"I remember Nell wandering in the deep woods with me, telling me...

"I remember Nell wandering in the deep woods with me, telling me the names of each bird that called. Fieldfares, pipits, larks and chaffinches. I can still hear a chaffinch’s little falling song, echoing down these many months. There is no chaffinch here, no birds at all. A solitary tree stretches its branched and crooked fingers over these recent ruins."

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

PHOTO: Stumped by tylerforesthauser on Flickr.

“I can see her now. On the day we take the forest path to the...

“I can see her now. On the day we take the forest path to the deep stream beside the alder copse. There a plover calls in the deep woodsy stillness, and then a pair of martins dart across the over-grown path. Through the trees can be seen the thick and fast-moving line of flowing water, a steep bank beneath our feet and flowering at the edge of the water, the purple loosestrife and meadowsweet of spring.”

— from the newly best-selling novel SINFUL FOLK

"A strange thing, words. Once they’re said, it’s hard to imagine they’re untrue."

“A strange thing, words. Once they’re said, it’s hard to imagine they’re untrue.”

- Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly (via ofdustandstarlight)

QUOTE: "Fog lifts in the valley, rising as mist through the...

QUOTE: 

"Fog lifts in the valley, rising as mist through the bare-limbed trees. Far below lies the deeping combe with our village in the heart of it. My whole world for nearly a decade has been contained in that place—and now the village of Duns looks so small. I hold up my hand, form a circle with my fingers. The distant village, wreathed in mist, seems a child’s plaything that I can hold in my hand."

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK 

PHOTO: admirebeautyphotography:

Admire Beauty PhotographyTumblr / Facebook / Buy Prints

"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I remember the...

"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I remember the day before she died, my mother took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea—the thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the rhythm never ceasing. And she taught me something: strange and secret words in a foreign tongue, a lilting singsong cadence to it."

— from the novel Sinful Folk

PHOTO: fiore-rosso: Peter Hujar | Hudson River (IV) (1975).