Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it.
—Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Quotes
People don’t always want to be with people. It gets tiring.
—Emma Donoghue, Room
The Span of Life
by Robert Frost
The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.
One of my teachers told me I was a nihilist. He meant it as an insult but I took it as a compliment.
—Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
Claire wondered about her youth. This was it, she supposed, and it seemed that it would go on and on and on. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. It was like walking across a desert without a hat.
—Cheryl Strayed, Torch
anyone lived in a pretty how town
by e e cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
Fear dims when you learn things.
—Lois Lowry, Son
Awaking in New York
by Maya Angelou
Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a
rumor of war,
lie stretching into dawn,
unasked and unheeded.
I decided to junk the whole honors program and be an ordinary English major. I went to look up the requirements of an ordinary English major at my college.
There were a lot of requirements, and I didn’t have half of them. One of the requirements was a course in the eighteenth century. I hated the very idea of the eighteenth century, with all those smug men writing tight little couplets and being so dead keen on reason.
—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
The joke is, we all have the same punchline.
—Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor
That Book Broad 