I came to the riverbank. The sand underfoot crunches and sounds like my grandmother sighing. She is fond of chattering endlessly, although no-one understands her. If you ask, Grandmother, what did you say? She will look up absentmindedly and, after a while, say, oh, you're back from school? Are you hungry? There are sweet potatoes in the bamboo steamer. When she chatters it is best not to interrupt; she is talking about when she was a young woman. But if you eavesdrop from behind her chair, she seems to be saying. It's hidden, it's hidden, everything is hidden, everything... All these memories are making noises in the sand under your feet.
Gao XingjianRelated topics
ask bamboo behind best came chair eavesdrop everything feet fond grandmother hide making potato sand saying school steamer sweet talking under underfoot while woman young riverbankRelated quotes
Behind her chair, from a wall covered in a very expensive velvet-flock paper, a portrait of her grandfather looked down. He had been an Episcopalian bishop, but the picture showed him in the costume of a New England gentleman keeping up the Old English custom of riding to hounds: red coat, brown boots, distinguished with a white dog-collar and black silk front.
Hugh referred to him as being dressed to kill.
The salad was replaced-though Hugh had sampled only a mouthful of his-by a dish of cold fish with mayonnaise. He didn't even touch this course. He was suddenly afraid of it because it had come from the sea.
John Brunner
[Description of Britain] Its plains are spacious, its hills are pleasantly situated, adapted for superior tillage, and its mountains are admirably calculated for the alternate pasturage of cattle, where flowers of various colours, trodden by the feet of man, give it the appearance of a lovely picture. It is decked, like a man's chosen bride, with divers jewels, with lucid fountains and abundant brooks wandering over the snow white sands; with transparent rivers, flowing in gentle murmurs, and offering a sweet pledge of slumber to those who recline upon their banks, whilst it is irrigated by abundant lakes, which pour forth cool torrents of refreshing water.
Gildas
Here's another question I have. How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelet? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen; that we passed chickens in goodness? Name six ways we're better than chickens... See, nobody can do it! You know why? 'Cause chickens are decent people. You don't see chickens hanging around in drug gangs, do you? No. You don't see a chicken strapping some guy to a chair and hooking up his nuts to a car battery, do you? When's the last chicken you heard about came home from work and beat the shit out of his hen, huh? Doesn't happen... 'cause chickens are decent people.
George Carlin
The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, of which our hearts are distinctly conscious, though it remains hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world - to the deep-implanted longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity of the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as to the same source we are able to trace the most visionary and incoherent reveries. A constant endeavour to unite these two elements, so that each may rob as little as possible from the other, has always seemed to me the true end of wisdom.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Arise, go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.Little, be always little, simple, poor, childlike.Preach the Gospel with your life, without compromise. Listen to the Spirit; He will lead you.Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.Love, love, love, never counting the cost.Go into the market place and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always: fast.Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor's feet. Go without fears into the depth of men's hearts. I shall be with you.Pray always. I will be your rest.
Catherine Doherty