Mella Dumali > Mella's Quotes

“In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways. When this world becomes too much for me, when I grow tired of the noise and the dirt and the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself; then I name a hall.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“If he is dead, I will not be far behind.”
― Madeline Miller The song of achilles

“I am made of memories.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“That is — your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“You are wise,” he said.

“If it is so,” I said, “it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“It was a pleasure to burn.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“I find astrology to be a wonderful tool not only for self-awareness, but also for opening minds and connecting us with vastness.”
― Juliana McCarthy, The Stars Within You: A Modern Guide to Astrology

“find small, meaningful ways to stay connected to their innate magic, to discover a new side of spirituality, to create a magical home filled with ritual and meaning.”
― Jennie Blonde, Hearth and Home Witchcraft: Rituals and Recipes to Nourish Home and Spirit

“and the emptied sky gaped like an abyss where, at the bottom, the stars had begun multiplying, and the night poured a river of emptiness over me, drowned me in dizziness and alarm.”
― Italo Calvino, The Complete Cosmicomics

“I still look for her as soon as the first sliver appears in the sky, and the more it waxes, the more clearly I imagine I can see her, her or something of her, but only her, in a hundred, a thousand different vistas, she who makes the Moon the Moon and, whenever she is full, sets the dogs to howling all night long, and me with them.”
― Italo Calvino, The Complete Cosmicomics

“time is a catastrophe, perpetual and irreversible.”
― Italo Calvino, The Complete Cosmicomics

“Praise be to the stars that implode. A new freedom opens up within them: annulled from space, exonerated from time, existing, at last, for themselves alone and no longer in relation to all the rest, perhaps only they can be sure they really exist.”
― Italo Calvino, The Complete Cosmicomics

“my love now knew only the heart-rending nostalgia for what it lacked: a where, a surrounding, a before, an after.”
― Italo Calvino, The Complete Cosmicomics

“All life is rhythmic. From the rise and fall of the sun to the rise and fall of our breath, from the beating of our heart to the infinite vibrations of atomic particles within our cells, we are a mass of vibrations that miraculously resonate together as a single system.”
― Anodea Judith, Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self

“Perhaps tiny signs reveal this sort of cosmic event to us, but we don’t notice them either”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“Whenever I find it hard to know what to do with myself, I imagine I have a zip fastener in my belly, from my neck to my groin, and that I’m slowly undoing it, from top to bottom. And then I pull my arms out of my arms, my legs out of my legs, and take my head off my head. As I extract myself from my own body, it falls off me like old clothes. Underneath them I’m finer, soft, almost transparent. I have a body like a Jellyfish, white, milky, phosphorescent. This fantasy is the only thing capable of bringing me relief. Oh yes, then I am free.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“When you are in darkness, stripped of visual cues, you are steered toward the well of wisdom that lies within.”
― Ezzie Spencer, Lunar Abundance: Cultivating Joy, Peace, and Purpose Using the Phases of the Moon