Barbara McEwen

“What a vision of loneliness and riot the thought of Margaret Cavendish brings to mind! as if some giant cucumber had spread itself over all the roses and carnations in the garden and choked them to death.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore.”
― John Powell SJ

“EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.”
― Mitch Albom, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

“Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself.”
― Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch