-
Welcome
to BookAndReader! We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!
Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.
Writing that moves you
- Thread starter True@1stLight
- Start date
Here's one of the many that stopped me in my tracks (if this works):
“A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath.”
Joseph Conrad – “An Outpost of Progress”
I'm sure there are more from sources as various as Raymond Chandler, Marquez, Borges, you name it.
“A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath.”
Joseph Conrad – “An Outpost of Progress”
I'm sure there are more from sources as various as Raymond Chandler, Marquez, Borges, you name it.
True@1stLight
New Member
funes said:
Great quote though. thx
ControlArmsNow
New Member
Found this quote from Mark Twain - I think it's from an article he wrote for The New Times (?):
"If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries-the ice-storm: when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top -- ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold-the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong."
Just....... awesome.
"If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries-the ice-storm: when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top -- ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold-the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong."
Just....... awesome.
ControlArmsNow
New Member
Can't stop thinking about that! A newspaper article! They don't write newspaper articles like that anymore, certainly not ones about the weather, anyway! It reminds me of another quote, from L.P. Smith:
"But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the black and star-enameled Night?"
"But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the black and star-enameled Night?"
True@1stLight
New Member
ControlArmsNow said:Found this quote from Mark Twain - I think it's from an article he wrote for The New Times (?):
"If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries-the ice-storm: when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top -- ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold-the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong."
I....I.....I...
speechless. I bow down to thee...
RainbowGurl
Active Member
When i write I think I often TRY to make my words moving. I'm a dreamer is a wishful way.
Irene Wilde
New Member
I could be here for hours and hours quoting Dylan Thomas, DH Laurence, Joyce and Miller, but I don't have those hours, so here are two short ones:
somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond -- e.e. cummings
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
And this is a song, but the words are beautiful and sad. The writer is Kate Rusby; it's called "Who Will Sing Me Lullabies:
Lay me down gently, lay me down low,
I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know;
There’s one thing I ask when the stars light the skies,
Who now will sing me lullabies? / Oh who now will sing me lullabies?
In this big world I’m lonely, for I am but small,
Oh angels in heaven, don’t you care for me at all?
You’ve heard my heart breaking for it rang through the skies,
So why won’t you sing me lullabies? / Oh why won’t you sing me lullabies?
I lay here, I’m weeping for the stars they have come,
I lay here not sleeping, now the long night has begun;
The man in the moon, oh he can’t help but cry,
For there’s no one to sing me lullabies, / Oh there’s no one to sing me lullabies.
So lay me down gently, oh lay me down low,
I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know;
There’s one thing I ask when the stars light the skies,
Who now will sing me lullabies? / Oh who now will sing me lullabies?
Who will sing me to sleep?
Who will sing me to sleep?
Who will sing me to sleep?...
Irene Wilde
somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond -- e.e. cummings
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
And this is a song, but the words are beautiful and sad. The writer is Kate Rusby; it's called "Who Will Sing Me Lullabies:
Lay me down gently, lay me down low,
I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know;
There’s one thing I ask when the stars light the skies,
Who now will sing me lullabies? / Oh who now will sing me lullabies?
In this big world I’m lonely, for I am but small,
Oh angels in heaven, don’t you care for me at all?
You’ve heard my heart breaking for it rang through the skies,
So why won’t you sing me lullabies? / Oh why won’t you sing me lullabies?
I lay here, I’m weeping for the stars they have come,
I lay here not sleeping, now the long night has begun;
The man in the moon, oh he can’t help but cry,
For there’s no one to sing me lullabies, / Oh there’s no one to sing me lullabies.
So lay me down gently, oh lay me down low,
I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know;
There’s one thing I ask when the stars light the skies,
Who now will sing me lullabies? / Oh who now will sing me lullabies?
Who will sing me to sleep?
Who will sing me to sleep?
Who will sing me to sleep?...
Irene Wilde
Colors of the wind Lyrics
You think you own whatever land you land on
Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name
You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You learn things you never knew
You never knew
* Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
Or ask the grinning bobcat why he grinned
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Happened to read this poem. Hope you like it as well.
Regards,
You think you own whatever land you land on
Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name
You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You learn things you never knew
You never knew
* Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
Or ask the grinning bobcat why he grinned
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Happened to read this poem. Hope you like it as well.
Regards,
The children each planted a tree around the schoolhouse and that tree was named after them. It was as if a piece of each child had been left behind to grow.
Dorothy would lie down on the ground with Uncle Henry covering her, and she would look past his face. The trees would lean over as if in sympathy, and Dorothy would let her spirit fly up to them, to hide amid their leaves, to reside in them. She would make herself part of them. She felt herself bend and sight with them; she felt buds and soft green leaves at the tips of her extremities. She was out of reach of Uncle Henry then. He could not touch her then. She was a tree. There were trees called Dorothy all over the hillsides.
From WAS by Geoff Ryman
Dorothy would lie down on the ground with Uncle Henry covering her, and she would look past his face. The trees would lean over as if in sympathy, and Dorothy would let her spirit fly up to them, to hide amid their leaves, to reside in them. She would make herself part of them. She felt herself bend and sight with them; she felt buds and soft green leaves at the tips of her extremities. She was out of reach of Uncle Henry then. He could not touch her then. She was a tree. There were trees called Dorothy all over the hillsides.
From WAS by Geoff Ryman
True@1stLight
New Member
Not sure if anyway can understand that quote, unless they've read the book. It needs context, but is quite good in that context. Although, it's moving in a horrific way, rather than a touching one, as the whole of the book is.