“…science and scientist continue to be governed by fear—fear of public opinion,…fear of religious intolerance, fear of political pressure, and, above all, fear of bigotry and prejudice—as much within as without the professional world.” (And
...more
“Let's say it once and for all: in the future mankind was immersed in the most endearing error a present mind can conceive. The past awaits us with open arms: toward it, we throw ourselves with our hearts full of faith in God, the source of all reason and justice. The path of the people is a backward path that goes forward, in a time that comes from the future and will end in the past, because the time of our countrymen more than path is time, and more than time is path.”
― The Novices of Lerna
― The Novices of Lerna
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― The Haunting of Hill House
― The Haunting of Hill House
“The Cold Leech eats cold nothingness and shits hot, vital being. It is a demiurge, a little god in a thumb-sized shape, a miniature sun-
With a hairbrush handle you scrape the Cold Leeches off your windowpane. They fall off the glass. Immediately cool creeps back in. You do not care that they are miracles. You need your sleep. You have work tomorrow.”
― Creatures of Near Kingdoms
With a hairbrush handle you scrape the Cold Leeches off your windowpane. They fall off the glass. Immediately cool creeps back in. You do not care that they are miracles. You need your sleep. You have work tomorrow.”
― Creatures of Near Kingdoms
“When I was six, I tried to sleep every night with my arms folded behind my back like wings. This didn't last, because it is hard to sleep every night with your arms folded behind your back like wings.”
― H is for Hawk
― H is for Hawk
“but in his one hand he held a holly-bundle,
that is greatest in greenery where groves are leafless,
and an axe in the other, ugly and monstrous,
a ruthless weapon aright for one in rhyme to describe:
the head was as large and as long as an ellwand,
a branch of green steel and of beaten gold;
the bit, burnished bright and broad at the edge,
as well shaped for shearing as sharp razors;
the stern was a stout staff, by which sternly he gripped it,
all bound with iron about to the base of the handle,
and engraved in green in graceful patterns,
lapped round with a lanyard that was lashed to the head
and down the length of the haft was looped many times;
and tassels of price were tied there in plenty
to bosses of the bright green, braided most richly.”
― Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo
that is greatest in greenery where groves are leafless,
and an axe in the other, ugly and monstrous,
a ruthless weapon aright for one in rhyme to describe:
the head was as large and as long as an ellwand,
a branch of green steel and of beaten gold;
the bit, burnished bright and broad at the edge,
as well shaped for shearing as sharp razors;
the stern was a stout staff, by which sternly he gripped it,
all bound with iron about to the base of the handle,
and engraved in green in graceful patterns,
lapped round with a lanyard that was lashed to the head
and down the length of the haft was looped many times;
and tassels of price were tied there in plenty
to bosses of the bright green, braided most richly.”
― Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo
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