The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy Quotes

“Yet even in this place of deepest despair there were streams of scintillating hope and joy. Young lives, gathering to themselves a defiant future, a determination to find some kind of happiness in the shadows. (Chapter 5)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“Scooping up a spider trapped in some slippery bath and sending it on its scuttling way seemed a good deed in the eyes of some, especially spiders themselves. Were they grateful? Would they ensure a plague of boring beetles cease to drill holes in precious tomes in search of digestible knowledge?

Yes. They would. (Chapter 5)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“The Academy of Sure Things was a living, organic thing. A great nourishing bowl of knowledge one might dip into to seek answers to every possible question, even league tables of the most corrupt politicians in various lands. It was fed by countless contributors, many of the anonymous kind, obviously.

Yet the bedrock of its merit lay in the fundamentals, those non-changing truths that some foolishly called laws of nature. Standard works of reference were just that, the standards by which everyone found themselves governed, whether they liked it or not. (Chapter 8)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“With one of the most pleasant of climates all year round, beaches a hundred miles long in great scallop-shaped bays, a restless sea with booming surf and the freshest of sea breezes, a healthy lifestyle was hard to avoid. It was a land of opportunity. It was also a land of opportunity's very near but slightly shady relative opportunism. (Chapter 3)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“Are you sure you wish the blind up?' the lady then asked, thinking of the storm barriers to come and their flickering displays of energy. During the period of close approach by the great moon Serenity the barriers lost much of their menace yet the display was still unnerving to new flyers. The schoolgirl was obviously not a regular commuter between the lands across the Face of the World.

'Yes, thank you,' Vetta replied with rising enthusiasm. 'I would like to see.'

'But there is nothing out there, except some distant lightning now and again. Nothing to worry about of course,' she reassured the excited girl.

'Papa says to see nothing is as much as to see something for absence teaches its own lesson. Darkness is enlightening and I wish to learn everything I can. That is why I am going to a big school in Frangea. Education is one of the five wellsprings of joy.'

'Well, it sounds as if you know what you want,' came a smiling response.

'Only that I want to know.' (Chapter 10)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“Yet there came a time when enough was enough and a favourite bowl lost its will to live and shattered into curious fragments like a parting of the ways. Some pieces, usually the larger, were gathered together and thrown away whereas the smaller were ground down to become part of the landscape and were forever lost, detached for all eternity from what they once were, though still linked by some tenuous phenomenon some called entanglement.

The shards that remained however took on a new life. It was not simply enough to be landfill or decorative surprises in concrete walling. Some awaited rediscovery as historical artefacts, or puzzles of the past.

Some became symbols of broken lives in need of mending, a wrong put right, an outrage avenged. Tears that should never have been shed. (Chapter 4)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy

“Adaptability was one of the survival traits of any species. Find a difficulty and seek a means to obviate it. How though to adapt to the unseen, barely felt, but all-pervading sense of dread which crept into the bones and made more frequent visits to the water closet inevitable?

Have lingering lie-ins perhaps, ones that might linger long enough to discover doom had been missed, prompting a desire to roll over and get back to sleep.

Or there was the possibility of induced hallucinations. Popular one that, for somehow the future seemed more comical and less threatening under such derangement. Safety seemed less important too. After all what could possibly go wrong if one were to step off a cliff ledge or lean too far out of a window to admire distant vistas
whilst dreaming of the power of flight?

Finally there was the option to make stuff up. Self-delusion, so beloved by certain popularity-seeking souls, was a transferrable skill if the financing was done well. Thus there was a roaring trade in amulets to ward off evil. (Chapter 3)”
― Martyn X Brown, The Fifth Wellspring Of Joy