“
I refuse to "look up." Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man's fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
She plucked a rose and held it to her face. She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile. She wanted a garden of evergreens. A garden of stones. A garden of swords.
”
”
Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
“
Stop!' I cried imploringly to my god-like mind.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
”
”
Ram Dass
“
I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything.
"Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste."
"Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.
”
”
Sarah Dessen (Dreamland)
“
The room was darker and smelled of evergreen, as though my mother had been dreaming of trees.
”
”
Scott Heim (We Disappear)
“
Oh, Fortuna, you capricious sprite!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
So here's the truth - I love you. I love everything about you – the way you stick up for people even when it costs you. The way you keep trying to do the right thing even when you're not exactly sure what the right thing is. I love how you put words together. You're as skilled with words as any knife fighter with a blade. You can put an enemy down on his back, or you can raise people up so they find what's best in themselves. You've changed my life. You've given me the words I need to become whatever I want.
I love how you talk to lytlings. You don't talk down to them. You respect them, and anybody can tell you're actually interested in what they have to say.
I love the way you ride a horse – how you stick there like an upland thistle, whooping like a Demonai. I love the way you throw back your head and stomp your feet when you dance. I love how you go after what you want – whether it's kisses or a queendom.
I love your skin, like copper dusted over with gold. And your eyes – they're the color of a forest lake shaded by evergreens. One of the secret places that only the Demonai know about.
I love the scent of you – when you've been out in the fresh air, and that perfume you put behind your ears sometimes.
Believe it or not, I even love your road smell – of sweat and horses and leather and wool.
I want to breathe you in for the rest of my life.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
“
The year is a book, isn’t it, Marilla? Spring’s pages are written in Mayflowers and violets, summer’s in roses, autumn’s in red maple leaves, and winter in holly and evergreen.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3))
“
She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile. She wanted a garden of evergreens. A garden of stones. A garden of swords.
”
”
Keirsten White
“
It's not your fate to be well treated," Ignatius cried. "You're an overt masochist. Nice treatment will confuse and destroy you.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
...When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occassional cheese dip.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Sonnet LXXXI
And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember.
No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
with the breakdown of the medieval system, the gods of chaos, lunacy, and bad taste gained ascendancy.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
employers sense in me a denial of their values...they fear me. i suspect that they can see that i am forced to function in a century which i loathe.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
November--with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes--days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery
“
May and October, the best-smelling months? I'll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
“
Violence send deep roots into the heart, it has no seasons, it is always ripe, evergreen.
”
”
Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides)
“
My mother is currently associating with some undesirables who are attempting to transform her into an athlete of sorts, deprave specimens of mankind who regularly bowl their way to oblivion.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people.
”
”
Eugène Ionesco (Rhinoceros and Other Plays (Evergreen Original, E-259))
“
The only excursion of my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge. . . . New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Cause honey your soul
could never grow old
its evergreen
”
”
Ed Sheeran
“
Employers sense in me a denial of their values...They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
This liberal doxy must be impaled on the member of a particularly large stallion!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
I should have known that every time I open the door of my room I am literally opening a Pandora's Box.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
I bet you cook good, huh?" Darlene asked.
"Mother doesn't cook," Ignatius said dogmatically.
"She burns.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Dante: Evergreens aren't supposed to die
Renee: Everything Dies ..
”
”
Yvonne Wood (Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1))
“
All those ninnies have it wrong. The best thing about Seattle is the weather. The world over, people have ocean views. But across our ocean is Bainbridge Island, an evergreen curb, and over it the exploding, craggy, snow-scraped Olympics. I guess what I'm saying: I miss it, the mountains and the water.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
So we see that even when Fortuna spins us downward, the wheel sometimes halts for a moment and we find ourselves in a good, small cycle within the larger bad cycle. The universe, of course, is based upon the principle of the circle within the circle. At the moment, I am in an inner circle. Of course, smaller circles within this circle are also possible.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Mother went out again tonight, looking like a courtesan.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
”
”
W.H. Auden
“
He'd grown unused to woods like this. He'd become accustomed to the Northwest, evergreen and shaded dark. Here he was surrounded by soft leaves, not needles; leaves that carried their deaths secretly inside them, that already heard the whispers of Autumn. Roots and branches that knew things.
”
”
Michael Montoure (Slices)
“
a dense wall of greenery bordered it, ...an impenetrable barrier of oaks, evergreen shrubs, blackberry that somehow resisted the frost, and thorns. In the defense department, the witches would make Sleeping Beauty’s evil witch weep with jealousy.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels, #7))
“
No wonder you've turned on me so savagely. I suspect that you are using me as a scapegoat for your own feelings of guilt.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Perhaps the experience can give my writing a new dimension. Being actively engaged in the system which I criticize will be an interesting irony in itself.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Mrs. Reilly called in that accent that occurs south of New Jersey only in New Orleans, that Hoboken near the Gulf of Mexico.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Teach me the love that is evergreen after the fall leaved/Grave
”
”
Dylan Thomas (Dylan Thomas Reading His Poetry)
“
December is celebrated quite heartily here in the United States. Aggresively, one might say. Every conceivable space is corseted with strands of twinkle lights, buildings are smothered beneath greenery, and a mass mania for erecting oversized, inflatable, waving "snowmen" in front of homes erupts amid the populace. It's quite a hysteria- and the evergreen trees are not just a myth, Vasile. People really do purchase them, in abundance. They are for sale everywhere. Imagine paying for the privilege of dragging a filthy piece of forest into your living area for the purpose of bedecking it with glass balls and staring at it.
Why a tree? If one needed to display glass balls-and I highly discorage it-why not just a case of some sort? A rack?
”
”
Beth Fantaskey (Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (Jessica, #1))
“
Now, therefore, I will sleep. I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men."
Nay, dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."
So it seems," he said. "But let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
Had that poor Reilly kook really been proud of Levy Pants? He had always said that he was. That was one good sign of his insanity.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Books have a way of making themselves known." Kaya added. "When they're meant to be read, they'll appear. When you need them, you'll always be able to find the right book for you,
”
”
Julie Abe (Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch (Eva Evergreen, #1))
“
The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts.
”
”
Chinmayananda (Evergreen Messages)
“
We remember shooting stars for their shine, not the darkness of the night. Trying to wish away grief extinguishes those memories that glow so bright.
”
”
Julie Abe (Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch (Eva Evergreen, #1))
“
This couldn’t be just a lake. No real water was ever blue like that. A light breeze stirred the pin-cherry tree beside the window, ruffled the feathers of a fat sea gull promenading on the pink rocks below. The breeze was full of evergreen spice.
”
”
Dorothy Maywood Bird (Mystery at Laughing Water)
“
No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
Like two figures in the medieval Morality play, Pragmatism and Morality spar in the boxing ring of my brain.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Fortuna, that vicious slut.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
In my private apocalypse he will be impaled upon his own nightstick.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
The leaves on the white-barked quaky trees around the nearby lake glow like embers, fiery gold and auburn against the evergreens. The sight is a warm welcome home.
”
”
Erin Summerill (Ever the Hunted (A Clash of Kingdoms, #1))
“
A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.
”
”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
“
Autumn was coming; the evergreens might not have noticed, but the sycamores did.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
If she loved something, even for a minute, like the fish noodles at the market stall or the teacher who'd smiled at her last week, she held on to that love with tooth and claw. Most threads frayed over time and distance, but never Io's. Her love was evergreen.
”
”
Kika Hatzopoulou (Threads That Bind (Threads That Bind, #1))
“
until the oceans dry up,
and the evergreens lose their color
until the sun forgets to shine,
and the birds can't remember how to sing
until the world isn't round,
and all of the stars fall out of the sky
i will love you
”
”
Ellen Everett (I Saw You As A Flower: A Poetry Collection)
“
They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don't you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won't be a robot!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shown on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; and now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau
“
Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,
let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart
fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,
or a broken string. Let my joyfully streaming face
make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise
and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
our season in our inner year--, not only a season
in time--, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil
and home.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus)
“
Social Note: I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, the shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Aku tak pernah percaya kebetulan, Nona. Aku hanya percaya bahwa apa pun bisa terjadi jika keinginan kita terlampau kuat. Terutama setelah kita menerima perlakukan tidak adil.
”
”
Prisca Primasari (Evergreen)
“
Kalian ingin selalu mengingat kenangan manis, sedangkan aku malah ingin melupakan. Bahkan aku berharap kenangan itu tidak pernah ada. Dengan begitu, tidak ada yang perlu kutangisi.
”
”
Prisca Primasari (Evergreen)
“
The blossoms seem unusually lovely this year. There were none of the scarlet-and-white-striped curtains that are set up among the blossoming trees so invariably that one has to come to think of them as the attire of cherry blossoms; there were no bustling tea-stalls, no holiday crowds of flower-viewers, no one hawking balloons and toy windmills; instead there were only the cherry trees blossoming undisturbed among the evergreens, making one feel as though he were seeing the naked bodies of the blossoms. Nature's free bounty and useless extravagance had never appeared so fantastically beautiful as it did this spring. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that Nature had come to reconquer the earth for herself.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Confessions of a Mask)
“
Filth!' Ignatious shouted, spewing wet popcorn over rows. 'How dare she pretend to be a virgin. Look at her degenerate face. Rape her!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Mothers got a hard road to travel, believe me.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Remember, 'Even this will pass away!
”
”
Chinmayananda (Evergreen Messages)
“
Amelia stopped before him, her skirts crowded between his parted knees. The clean, salty, evergreen scent of him drifted to her nostrils. “I have a proposition for you,” she said, trying for a businesslike tone. “A very sensible one. You see—” She paused to clear her throat. “I’ve been thinking about your problem.” “What problem?” Cam played lightly with the folds of her skirts, watching her face alertly. “Your good-luck curse. I know how to get rid of it. You should marry into a family with very, very bad luck. A family with expensive problems. And then you won’t have to be embarrassed about having so much money, because it will flow out nearly as fast as it comes in."
"Very sensible.” Cam took her shaking hand in his, pressed it between his warm palms. And touched his foot to her rapidly tapping one.
“Hummingbird,” he whispered, “you don’t have to be nervous with me.”
Gathering her courage, Amelia blurted out, “I want your ring. I want never to take it off again. I want to be your romni forever”—she paused with a quick, abashed smile—“whatever that is.”
“My bride. My wife.” Amelia froze in a moment of throat-clenching delight as she felt him slide the gold ring onto her finger, easing it to the base.
“When we were with Leo, tonight,” she said scratchily, “I knew exactly how he felt about losing Laura. He told me once that I couldn’t understand unless I had loved someone that way. He was right. And tonight, as I watched you with him . . . I knew what I would think at the very last moment of my life.” His thumb smoothed over the tender surface of her knuckle.
“Yes, love?”
"I would think,” she continued,” ‘Oh, if I could have just one more day with Cam. I would fit a lifetime into those few hours.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
“
Hey! All you peoples draggin along here. Stop and come stick your ass on a Night of Joy stool," he started again. "Night of Joy got genuine color peoples workin below the minimal wage. Whoa! Guarantee plantation atmosphere, got cotton growin right on the stage right in front your eyeball, got a civil right worker gettin his ass beat up between show. Hey!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
... I tried to end our little duel. I called out pacifying words; I entreated; I finally surrendered. Still Clyde came, my pirate costume so great a success that it had apparently convinced him that we were back in the golden days of romantic old New Orleans when gentlemen decided matters of hot dog honor at twenty paces
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Too long have I confined myself in Miltonic isolation and meditation. It is clearly time for me to step boldly into our society, not in the boring, passive manner of the Myrna Minkoff school of social action, but with great style and zest.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
I walked until I lost the light from the fire pit, clawing at my T-shirt, trying to pull it away from my skin. It smelled like his room. Like evergreens and spice and old, decaying things. I pulled it over my head and threw it as hard and far as I could, and still—still—I couldn’t shake the smell. It was everywhere: my hands, my jeans, my bra. I should have run straight for the lake, or even the showers. I should have tried to soak his venom out.
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, #1))
“
I want that Easter Ham. Where's my Thanksgiving Turkey?" Miss Trixie snarled
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
To our indigenous ancestors, and to the many aboriginal peoples who still hold fast to their oral traditions, language is less a human possession than it is a property of the animate earth itself, an expressive, telluric power in which we, along with the coyotes and the crickets, all participate. Each creature enacts this expressive magic in its own manner, the honeybee with its waggle dance no less than a bellicose, harrumphing sea lion.
Nor is this power restricted solely to animals. The whispered hush of the uncut grasses at dawn, the plaintive moan of trunks rubbing against one another in the deep woods, or the laughter of birch leaves as the wind gusts through their branches all bear a thicket of many-layered meanings for those who listen carefully. In the Pacific Northwest I met a man who had schooled himself in the speech of needled evergreens; on a breezy day you could drive him, blindfolded, to any patch of coastal forest and place him, still blind, beneath a particular tree -- after a few moments he would tell you, by listening, just what species of pine or spruce or fir stood above him (whether he stood beneath a Douglas fir or a grand fir, a Sitka spruce or a western red cedar). His ears were attuned, he said, to the different dialects of the trees.
”
”
David Abram (Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology)
“
Had you ‘artists’ had a part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, it would have ended up looking like a particularly vulgar train terminal,” Ignatius snorted.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Clean, hard-working, dependable, quiet type.' Good God! What kind of monster is this that they want. I am afraid that I could never work for a concern with a worldview like that.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
You must realize the fear and hatred which my weltanschauung instills in people.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Oh, my God!" Ignatius bellowed from the front of the house. "What an egregious insult to good taste.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
...the nation as a whole has no contact with reality. That is only one of the reasons why I have always been forced to exist on the fringes of its society, consigned to the Limbo reserved for those who do know reality when they see it.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
Psycho? The woman's senile. We had to stop at about thirty gas stations on the way over here. Finally I got tired of getting out of the car and showing her which was the Men's and which was the Women's, so I let her pick them herself. I worked out a system. The law of averages. I laid money on her and she came out about fifty-fifty.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. Friends giving advice often tell each other, ‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘follow your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths. The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has marketed Diet Coke around the world under the slogan ‘Diet Coke. Do what feels good.’ Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighbouring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. 18. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The kind of thing rich people in ancient Egypt did with their money. Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted. Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
Memaafkan. Kata yang lucu sekali, bukan?... Sesuatu yang sulit sekali diberikan. Padahal dengan melakukan itu berarti kita menyelamatkan hati kita sendiri. Pernahkah kau mendengar, bahwa ketika kau memaafkan seseorang, kau membuka lagi pintu rumah yang sebelumnya kau tutup rapat-rapat, yang telah membuat dirimu terperangkap dan kehabisan napas. Ketika kau memaafkan, kau pun bisa bernapas lagi. Dan hidup.
”
”
Prisca Primasari (Evergreen)
“
When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
”
”
Ram Dass
“
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன், கண்ணம்மா
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன்
பொன்னை, உயர்வை, புகழை விரும்பிடும்
என்னை கவலைகள் தின்ன தகாதென..
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன், கண்ணம்மா
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன்
மிடிமையும் அச்சமும் மேவி என் நெஞ்சில்
குடிமை புகுந்தன, கொன்று அவை போக்கின
தன்செய லெண்ணித் தவிப்பது தீர்ந்திங்கு
நின்செயல் செய்து நிறைவு பெறும்வண்ணம்
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன், கண்ணம்மா
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன்
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன், கண்ணம்மா
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன்
துன்பம் இனி இல்லை, சோர்வில்லை
சோர்வில்லை, தோற்பில்லை
நல்லது தீயது நாமறியோம்
நாமறியோம் நாமறியோம்
அன்பு நெறியில் அறங்கள் வளர்த்திட
நல்லது நாட்டுக! தீமையை ஓட்டுக
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன், கண்ணம்மா
நின்னை சரணடைந்தேன்
”
”
Subramaniya Bharathiyar (பாரதியார் கவிதைகள் [Bharathiyar Kavidhaigal])
“
Do you think that I want to live in a communal society with people like that Battaglia acquaintance of yours, sweeping streets and breaking up rocks or whatever it is people are always doing in those blighted countries? What I want is a good, strong monarchy with a tasteful and decent king who has some knowledge of theology and geometry and to cultivate a Rich Inner Life.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
You can never tie a string to someone's heart to keep them from walking away; you can only love them in their freedom and hope that they choose to stay, hope that they love you back freely in the same way.
”
”
Kirsten Robinson (Evergreen)
“
Perhaps I should have been a Negro. I suspect I would have been a rather large and terrifying one, continually pressing my ample thigh against the withered thighs of old white ladies in public conveyances a great deal and eliciting more than one shriek of panic. Then, too, if I were a Negro, I would not be pressured by my mother to find a good job, for no good jobs would be available. My mother herself, a worn old Negress, would be too broken by years of underpaid labor as a domestic to go out bowling at night. She and I could live most pleasantly in some moldy shack in the slums in a state of ambitionless peace, realizing contentedly that we were unwanted, that striving was meaningless.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
What if she remembered the fortress wrong? What if she climbed up and the sun did not come out? What if it did, but it felt the same as any other sunrise?
She could not risk tainting that precious memory. She clutched the locket around her neck, the one Radu had given her to replace her old leather pouch. Inside were the dusty remains of an evergreen sprig and a flower from these same mountains. She had carried them with her as talismans through the lands of her enemies. Now she was home, and still in the land of her enemies.
She would climb that peak one day, soon. When it was all hers. She would come back, and she would rebuild the fortress to honor Wallachia.
”
”
Kiersten White (Now I Rise (And I Darken Series, #2))
“
Your Midas touch on the Chevy door
November flush and your flannel cure
"This dorm was once a madhouse"
I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me"
How evergreen, our group of friends
Don't think we'll say that word again
And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls
That we once walked through
One for the money, two for the show
I never was ready, so I watch you go
Sometimes you just don't know the answer
'Til someone's on their knees and asks you
"She would've made such a lovely bride
What a shame she's fucked in her head, " they said
But you'll find the real thing instead
She'll patch up your tapestry that I shred
”
”
Taylor Swift
“
Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow,
While every Highland glen
Sends our shout back again,
'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!
”
”
Walter Scott (Lady of the Lake)
“
In the summer when the wind stirs the trees, there is that rushing, swelling sound of masses of heavy foliage, a sound that drowns, in its full-blossomed, undulating, ocean-like murmur, the individual sorrows of trees. But across this leafless unfrequented field these two evergreens could lift to each other their sub-human voices and cry their ancient vegetation-cry, clear and strong; that cry which always seems to come from some underworld of Being, where tragedy is mitigated by a strange undying acceptance beyond the comprehension of the troubled hearts of men and women.
”
”
John Cowper Powys (A Glastonbury Romance)
“
I roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.
Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.
"do they collide?"
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter.
When you feel embarrassed then i'll be your pride
When you need directions then i'll be the guide
For all time.
”
”
Death Cab for Cutie
“
…perverts around the world will also band together to capture the military in their respective countries. In those reactionary countries in which the deviates seem to be having some trouble in gaining control, we will send aid to them as rebels to help them in toppling their governments. When we have at last overthrown all existing governments, the world will enjoy not war but global orgies conducted with the utmost protocol and the most truly international spirit, for these people do transcend simple national differences.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, . . ." ~Lord Byron
So walk with me a little while in the pathless woods and reflect upon the unknown....
...I find myself enchanted by Byron's "pathless woods," and it isn't hard to visualize them: tall, crowding trees, between which you make your way; the scent of earth and foliage and of evergreens. And, looking up, a patch of bright blue sky.... And, unless a leaf fell or a bird sang, there would be silence in the woods except for one's own footsteps which would, I dare say, be hushed also.
In the woods there must be a sense that time has ceased and that for a moment we pause on the edge of some extraordinary discovery, that for the space of a heartbeat we are close to knowledge, on the verge of the solution to all problems, on the threshold of an answer.
Pathless woods, steeped in peace and towering between heaven and earth would, I think, have that answer waiting for us if we were receptive enough to hear it.
...Here in the woods, perhaps we can listen with the heart and with the spirit, and hear the trees speak of growth, and the earth of seeds and silence, and looking up to the sky, hear sunlight singing.
”
”
Faith Baldwin (Evening Star (Thorndike Large Print General Series))
“
Abelman’s Dry Goods
Kansas City, Missouri
U.S.A. Mr. I. Abelman, Mongoloid, Esq.:
We have received via post your absurd comments about our trousers, the comments revealing, as they did, your total lack of contact with reality. Were you more aware, you would know or realize by now that the offending trousers were dispatched to you with our full knowledge that they were inadequate so far as length was concerned.
“Why? Why?” You are, in your incomprehensible babble, unable to assimilate stimulating concepts of commerce into your retarded and blighted worldview.
The trousers were sent to you (1) as a means of testing your initiative (A clever, wide-awake business concern should be able to make three-quarter-length trousers a byword of masculine fashion. Your advertising and merchandising programs are obviously faulty.) and (2) as a means of testing your ability to meet the standards requisite in a distributor of our quality product. (Our loyal and dependable outlets can vend any trouser bearing the Levy label no matter how abominable their design and construction. You are apparently a faithless people.)
We do not wish to be bothered in the future by such tedious complaints. Please confine your correspondence to orders only. We are a busy and dynamic organization whose mission needless effrontery and harassment can only hinder. If you molest us again, sir, you may feel the sting of the lash across your pitiful shoulders.
Yours in anger,
Gus Levy, Pres.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
This is meant to be in praise of the interval called hangover,
a sadness not co-terminous with hopelessness,
and the North American doubling cascade
that (keep going) “this diamond lake is a photo lab”
and if predicates really do propel the plot
then you might see Jerusalem in a soap bubble
or the appliance failures on Olive Street
across these great instances,
because “the complex Italians versus the basic Italians”
because what does a mirror look like (when it´s not working)
but birds singing a full tone higher in the sunshine.
I´m going to call them Honest Eyes until I know if they are,
in the interval called slam clicker, Realm of Pacific,
because the second language wouldn´t let me learn it
because I have heard of you for a long time occasionally
because diet cards may be the recovery evergreen
and there is a new benzodiazepene called Distance,
anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship.
I suppose a broken window is not symbolic
unless symbolic means broken, which I think it sorta does,
and when the phone jangles
what´s more radical, the snow or the tires,
and what does the Bible say about metal fatigue
and why do mothers carry big scratched-up sunglasses
in their purses.
Hello to the era of going to the store to buy more ice
because we are running out.
Hello to feelings that arrive unintroduced.
Hello to the nonfunctional sprig of parsley
and the game of finding meaning in coincidence.
Because there is a second mind in the margins of the used book
because Judas Priest (source: Firestone Library)
sang a song called Stained Class,
because this world is 66% Then and 33% Now,
and if you wake up thinking “feeling is a skill now”
or “even this glass of water seems complicated now”
and a phrase from a men´s magazine (like single-district cognac)
rings and rings in your neck,
then let the consequent misunderstandings
(let the changer love the changed)
wobble on heartbreakingly nu legs
into this street-legal nonfiction,
into this good world,
this warm place
that I love with all my heart,
anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship.
”
”
David Berman
“
Magnolias don't look like that," Ignatius said, thrusting his cutlass at the offending pastel magnolia. "You ladies need a course in botany. And perhaps geometry, too."
"You don't have to look at our work," an offended voice said from the group, the voice of the lady who had drawn the magnolia in question.
"Yes, I do!" Ignatius screamed. "You ladies need a critic with some taste and decency. Good heavens! Which one of you did this camellia? Speak up. The water in this bowl looks like motor oil."
"Let us alone," a shrill voice said.
"You women had better stop giving teas and brunches and settle down to the bustiness of learning how to draw," Ignatius thundered. "First, you must learn how to handle a brush. I would suggest that you all get together and paint someone's house for a start."
"Go away."
"Had you 'artists' had a part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, it would have ended up looking like a particularly vulgar train terminal," Ignatius snorted.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen. Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman, the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin, Dorian Greene, newspaper reporters, stripteasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pornographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The musky minx must be dealt with. Somehow. Someday. She must pay. Whatever happened, he must attend to her even if the revenge took years and he had to stalk her through decades from one coffee shop to another, from one folksinging orgy to another, from subway train to pad to cotton field to demonstration. Ignatius invoked an elaborate Elizabethan curse upon Myrna and, rolling over, frantically abused the glove once more.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)