“
Life is a tapestry woven by the decisions we make.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter, #4))
“
There are no monsters in the world, and no saints. Only infinite shades woven into the same tapestry, light and dark. One man’s monster is another man’s beloved. The wise know that.
”
”
Katherine Arden (The Winter of the Witch (The Winternight Trilogy, #3))
“
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
”
”
John Adams (Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife)
“
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
I believe everything happens for a reason. Whether it is decided by the Mother, or the Cauldron, or some sort of tapestry of Fate, I don't know. I don't really care. But I am grateful for it, whatever it is. Grateful that it brought you all into my life. If it hadn't... I might have become as awful as that prick we're going to face today. If I had not met an Illyrian warrior-in-training," he said to Cassian, "I would not have known the true depths of strength, of resilience, of honor and loyalty." Cassian's eyes gleamed bright. Rhys said to Azriel, "If I had not met a shadowsinger, I would not have known that it is the family you make, not the one you are born into, that matters. I would not have known what it is to truly hope, even when the world tells you to despair." Azriel bowed his head in thanks.
Mor was already crying when Rhys spoke to her. "If I had not met my cousin, I would neer have learned that light can be found in even the darkest of hells. That kidness can thrive even amongst cruelty." She wiped away her teas as she nodded.
I waited for Amren to offer a retort. But she was only waiting.
Rhys bowed his head to her. "If I had not met a tiny monster who hoards jewels more fiercely than a firedrake..." A quite laugh from all of us at that. Rhys smiled softly. "My own power would have consumed me long ago."
Rhys squeezed my hand as he looked to me at last. "And if I had not met my mate..." His words failed him as silver lined his eyes.
He said down the bond, I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have... The wait was worth it.
He wiped away the tears sliding down my face. "I believe that everything happened, exactly the way it had to... so I could find you." He kissed another tear away.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman
“
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
“
Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.
”
”
Neal Shusterman (UnWholly (Unwind, #2))
“
Bisexuality is truly a rich and complex tapestry.
”
”
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
“
No one expects Will Herondale to live past nineteen, and no one will be sorry to see him go, either -"
That was too much for Tessa. Without thinking about it she burst out indignantly, "What a thing to say!"
Gabriel, interrupted midrant, looked as shocked as if one of the tapestries had suddenly started talking. "Pardon me?"
"You heard me. Telling someone you wouldn't be sorry if they died! It's inexcusable!" She took hold of Will by the sleeve. "Come along, Will. This - this person - obviously isn't worth wasting your time on."
Will looked hugely entertained. "So true."
... Tessa frowned at Gabriel. "I think you owe Will an apology."
"I," said Gabriel, "would rather have my entrails yanked out and tied in a knot in front of my own eyes than apologize to such a worm."
"Goodness," said Jem mildly. "You can't mean that. Not the Will being a worm part, of course. The bit about the entrails. That sounds dreadful.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
“
Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Portrait in Sepia)
“
History isn't a premade tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.
”
”
R.F. Kuang (Babel)
“
...we will stand amazed to see the topside of the tapestry and how God beautifully embroidered each circumstance into a pattern for our good and His glory.
”
”
Joni Eareckson Tada
“
Marvelous,” she said. “Tell me about this tapestry.”
Arachne’s lips curled over her mandibles. “Why do you care? You're about to die.”
“Well, yes,” Annabeth said. “But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real gold thread for the sunbeams?
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
But they wove a tapestry of dreams, all begging for one thing... a better world.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5))
“
Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakable tender hand, placed beside another thread and held and carried by a hundred others.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“
Embroidery?" I sucked at embroidery. Aunt Hyacinth had tried to teach me, but we'd both given it up as a lost cause.Lucy, strangely, had picked it up really quickly and embroidered a tapestry of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow for my last birthday.
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (My Love Lies Bleeding (Drake Chronicles, #1))
“
Fine,” Emma said. She strode over to the corner and picked up the tapestry of Alec. “But I’m keeping this.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3))
“
I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry. I believe God is the weaver at that loom.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans
“
Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength—to the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.
”
”
Dean Koontz (From the Corner of His Eye)
“
She saw it in a flash of utter clarity. She knew what she had to do. The only path, the only way forward. And what a familiar path it was. It was so obvious now. The world was a dream of the gods, and the gods dreamed in sequences, in symmetry, in patterns. History repeated itself, and she was only the latest iteration of the same scene in a tapestry that had been spun long before her birth.
”
”
R.F. Kuang (The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3))
“
The weaver went on, “I have to create, or it was all for nothing. I have to create, or I will crumple up with despair and never leave my bed. I have to create because I have no other way of voicing this.” Her hand rested on her heart, and my eyes burned. “It is hard,” the weaver said, her stare never leaving mine, “and it hurts, but if I were to stop, if I were to let this loom or the spindle go silent …” She broke my gaze at last to look to her tapestry. “Then there would be no Hope shining in the Void.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5))
“
When we create an environment that ensures a space where our dreams can burgeon, happiness can let us see the wonders in everyday moments and value the intricate tapestry of life. (“When is Happiness?”)
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
The universe is a trillion, trillion threads moving in seemingly unrelated directions. Yet when you look at them together, they create a remarkable tapestry.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans
“
If we push in the right spots - then we've moved things to the breaking point. The the future becomes fluid, and change is possible. History isn't a premed tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.
”
”
R.F. Kuang (Babel)
“
I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry,...
”
”
K.J. Charles (The Magpie Lord (A Charm of Magpies, #1))
“
If beauty connects us to the world and to ourselves, it also gives us a sense of belonging. It confers our place in the larger tapestry of life and fuels creative power and imagination, adding depth and meaning to our journey. ("Absence of beauty was like hell")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
I had woven a tapestry of obscenity that as far as I know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.
”
”
Jean Shepherd (A Christmas Story)
“
You know the opinion of Cervantes? He said that reading a translation is like examining the back of a piece of tapestry.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Contact)
“
Outside, in the newly fallen darkness, the world had been transformed. The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.
”
”
Dan Brown (Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4))
“
Scrivener," he sighed. "I should have known it was you the moment I heard my great-grandmother's priceless antique vase hit the floor." He turned his assessing gaze to the Malefict. "And who's this? A friend of yours?"
The Codex bared a mouthful of fangs and produced an ear-splitting shriek. Above them, the chandelier trembled.
"Charmed," Nathaniel said. He turned back to Elisabeth. "If the two of you feel the need to destroy anything else, I've been meaning to get rid of Aunt Clothilde's tapestry for years. You'll know it when you see it. It's mauve.
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (Sorcery of Thorns (Sorcery of Thorns, #1))
“
As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?
”
”
Lemmy Kilmister
“
The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.
”
”
Carson McCullers
“
Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for higher guidance or purpose. If you can, realize that a cosmic plan is unfolding and appreciate the incredibly woven tapestry for what it is, a design of unparalleled marvel.
”
”
Deepak Chopra (The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)
“
Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.
”
”
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
“
There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1))
“
Your life is always under construction. It is your job to learn how
to untangle the threads and weave a tapestry that matches your desires.
”
”
Dannye Williamsen
“
Everything that happens is part of your wholeness. The sadness, the loss, the hurt, as well as the joy, the love, the friendship--it is all part of your tapestry.
”
”
Kay O'Neill (The Tea Dragon Tapestry (Tea Dragon, #3))
“
Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (Love Over Scotland (44 Scotland Street, #3))
“
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose -- and don't let them tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion. (Live an illusion if you have to). You are that combination so that you can do what is essential for you to do. Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute. The world is an incredibly unfulfilled tapestry. And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.
”
”
Leo F. Buscaglia
“
Beware the flatterers of the world...for what is music to the ears may be poison to the soul.
”
”
Henry H. Neff (The Second Siege (The Tapestry, #2))
“
Who do you wish to be? he asked the barely woven tapestry within himself. Let the threads and knots take form, crafting the picture within his mind. Starting small.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7))
“
It was the way the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned; the way the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky, reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old colour.
”
”
Henry James
“
Life can be brittle and generous. Love and happiness are not static but evolving experiences enhanced by insight, allowing us to transform our existence into a tapestry of vibrant colors and dazzling splendor. (Love, Happiness, and Insight)
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
You feel like you've lost your path. It's natural to be sad. It's alright to let those feelings wash over you, and give them time to soak into the earth. That's when things start to grow again.
”
”
Kay O'Neill (The Tea Dragon Tapestry (Tea Dragon, #3))
“
She might be but one stitch in the tapestry, but every stitch had a purpose, and threads couldn't become art without them.
”
”
Emily Thiede (This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra, #1))
“
Have you ever wanted a really big tapestry of yourself?” Emma said to him.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3))
“
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstitiion will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds.
The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos.
That would be a hell of a zoo.
The judge smiled. Yes, he said. Even so.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy
“
If a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving tapestry, he had better shut up, he'll never do any good at all.
”
”
William Morris
“
Trust is not a gasoline-soaked blanket that succumbs to the matches of betrayal, never able to be used for its warmth again; it’s a tapestry that wears thin in places, but can be patched over if you have the right materials, circumstances, and patience to repair it. If you don’t, you’re always the one who feels the coldest when winter comes.
”
”
A.J. Darkholme (Rise of the Morningstar (The Morningstar Chronicles, #1))
“
TRIAD:
Three
separate highways
intersect at a place
no reasonable person
would ever want to go.
Three
lives that would have
been cut short, if not
for hasty interventions
by loved ones. Or Fate.
Three
people, with nothing
at all in common
except age, proximity,
and a wish to die.
Three
tapestries, tattered
at the edges and come
unwoven to reveal
a single mutual thread.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Impulse (Impulse, #1))
“
A mortal had woven it, a man who, having caught sight of the Seelie queen, had spent the remainder of his short life weaving depictions of her. He had died of starvation, raw, red fingers staining the final tapestry.
”
”
Holly Black (Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales, #1))
“
As my Popo used to say, life is a tapestry we weave day by day with threads of different colors, some heavy and dark, others thin and bright, all the threads having their uses. The stupid things I did are already in the tapestry, indelible, but I’m not going to be weighed down by them till I die. What’s done is done; I have to look ahead.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Maya's Notebook)
“
Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being.
”
”
Elizabeth A. Johnson (Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit (Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality))
“
No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (A Thread of Grace)
“
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
”
”
David McCullough (John Adams)
“
Language was a vast, complicated tapestry. The key to communication was finding a common thread.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Once Upon a Winter's Eve (Spindle Cove, #1.5))
“
We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1))
“
Maybe the lesson is: Know when to brag and when to keep your mouth shut. Or: Sometimes life isn’t fair, even if you are as gifted as Athena. Or maybe: Don’t give away free tapestries.
”
”
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson's Greek Gods)
“
It is hundreds of tiny threads of memories, which sew people together through the years. Despite, their mental separation they stay woven into that tapestry out of habit, emotion, obsession or fear.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Absence has presence, sometimes, and that was what she felt. Absence like crushed-dead grass were something has been and is no longer. Absence where a thread has been ripped, ragged, from a tapestry, leaving a gap that can never be mended.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #3))
“
We're each single threads woven together in a tapestry God has created. Only he sees the full picture, but not even a sparrow falls without his knowing.
”
”
Francine Rivers (A Voice in the Wind (Mark of the Lion, #1))
“
We don’t accomplish anything in the world alone and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry off one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that create something.
”
”
Sandra Day O'Connor
“
Rhys said, “We will walk onto that field and only accept Death when it comes to haul us away to the Otherworld. We will fight for life, for survival, for our futures. But if it is decided by that tapestry of Fate or the Cauldron or the Mother that we do not walk off that field today …” His chin lifted. “The great joy and honor of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful—more than I can possibly say—that I was given this time with you all.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
The tapestry of my life was a ruin of unravelling threads. The brightest parts were a nonsensical madman's weaving. And now every day was a grey stitch, laid down with an outpatient's patience, one following the next following the next, a story in lines, like a railway track to nowhere, telling absolutely nothing.
”
”
Alexis Hall (Glitterland (Spires, #1))
“
In the tapestry of childhood, what stands out is not the splashy, blow-out trips to Disneyland but the common threads that run throughout and repeat: the family dinners, nature walks, reading together at bedtime, Saturday morning pancakes.
”
”
Kim John Payne
“
In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She’d bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena’s, which had led to Mount Olympus’s first reality TV punishment program: 'So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a Goddess?' Arachne had lost in a big way.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
most hated by the dark, for their name is light.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1-3))
“
So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had
gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing
incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if
plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night.
”
”
Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient)
“
I have been asked if I needed help so many timed that I have been allowed to forget the question, the significance of it. I see, now, the way the love in my life has woven into a tapestry that I've been blessed enough to get to ignore.
”
”
Rebecca Serle (In Five Years)
“
To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book — to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the floor — to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire — to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower — to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind — to lose all sense of motion or physical existence in a state of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in — Such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to any thing like analysis or explanation.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (Berenice)
“
It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand.
In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.
”
”
Maria Augusta von Trapp
“
When you get older, Richard, you realize life is made up of moments. All sorts of them. Sad ones, good ones, and great ones. They make up the tapestry that is your life. Hold on to all of them—especially the great ones. They make the others easy to take.
”
”
Melanie Moreland (The Contract (The Contract, #1))
“
When someone is grieving, the best thing you can do is let them heal on their own, and show them that you'll be there for them.
”
”
Kay O'Neill (The Tea Dragon Tapestry (Tea Dragon, #3))
“
I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Innocence of Father Brown (Father Brown, #1))
“
But life cannot be experienced one emotion at a time. It is a tapestry of sensation, a braided rope of feeling. We must allow for reflection even when we suffer. We must reach for compassion even when we triumph. If you spend your days waiting for your sorrows to end so that you might finally live” – he shook his head – “you will die an impatient man.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (All This Twisted Glory (This Woven Kingdom, #3))
“
Dave hung up. And unplugged the phone. With a fierce and bitter pain he stared at it, watching how, over and over again, it didn't ring.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1))
“
Its substance was known to me. The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally complex tapestry…each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh. The fibres stretched taut and glued themselves solidly to a third line, its silk made from the angles of seven flying buttresses to a cathedral roof. The plait disappeared into the enormity of possible spaces.
Every intention, interaction, motivation, every colour, every body, every action and reaction, every piece of physical reality and the thoughts that it engendered, every connection made, every nuanced moment of history and potentiality, every toothache and flagstone, every emotion and birth and banknote, every possible thing ever is woven into that limitless, sprawling web.
It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind. It is a work of such beauty that my soul wept...
..I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.
”
”
China Miéville (Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1))
“
Since the tapestry of all time has already been woven, everything I could ever want to happen in my life already exists in that infinite, nonphysical plane. My only task is to expand my earthly self enough to let it into this realm. So if there's something I desire, the idea isn't to go out and get it, but to expand my own consciousness to allow universal energy to bring it into my reality here.
”
”
Anita Moorjani (Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing)
“
One didn't stop to talk with creatures from one's nightmares.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1))
“
Daylight was coming outside, but it was not only that: courage cast its own light.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1))
“
There are many kinds of leaders. Too often we confuse a forceful personality with leadership. This is a mistake. Those with different talents and styles can reach the same mountaintop; they just take different paths to get there.
”
”
Henry H. Neff (The Red Winter (The Tapestry, #5))
“
The important thing for the remembering author is not what he experienced, but the weaving of his memory, the Penelope work of recollection. Or should one call it, rather, the Penelope work of forgetting? ... And is not his work of spontaneous recollection, in which remembrance is the woof and forgetting the warp, a counterpart to Penelope's work rather than its likeness? For here the day unravels what the night has woven. When we awake each morning, we hold in our hands, usually weakly and loosely, but a few fringes of the tapestry of a lived life, as loomed for us by forgetting. However, with our purposeful activity and, even more, our purposive remembering each day unravels the web and the ornaments of forgetting.
”
”
Walter Benjamin (Illuminations: Essays and Reflections)
“
The work of each individual contributes to a totality, and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives—past and present and to come—forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole? Daneel, keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you.
”
”
Isaac Asimov (Robots and Empire (Robot, #4))
“
The great tapestries of trees had darkened to ghosts back at the last edge of twilight. The early moon had drenched the arches with pale blue, and, weaving over the night, in and out of the gossamer rifts of moon, swept a song, a song with more than a hint of sadness, infinitely transient, infinitely regretful.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
Unless the perfidious wolves have the temerity to disobey the High King's plans, we should meet Shalhassan's forces by the Latham in mid-wood with the wolves between us. If they aren't,' Diarmuid concluded, 'we blame anyone and everything except the plan.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2))
“
We must try to remember everything, every movement, every stretch, every convulsion that made us how we move as we readily grow in our outer body that encompasses the planets, the suns and the moons in every other body that we touch, in every other mouth that we kissed, in every other language that we try to comprehend; for they are not the outside of a stranger, nor are they just images of our psyche, but the very being of ourselves, the dimensional levels of our very existence weaving colours in the tapestry of creation, yet the very non-existence of the template is proof of consciousness, of ascension, of Life.
”
”
AainaA-Ridtz (The Sacred Key — Transcending Humanity)
“
I love the sound of words, the feel of them, the flow of them. I love the challenge of finding just that perfect combination of words to describe a curl of the lip, a tilt of the chin, a change in the atmosphere. Done well, novel-writing can combine lyricism with practicality in a way that makes one think of grand tapestries, both functional and beautiful. Fifty years from now, I imagine I’ll still be questing after just that right combination of words.
”
”
Lauren Willig
“
Corus lay on the southern bank of the Oloron River, towers glinting in the sun. The homes of wealthy men lined the river to the north; tanners, smiths, wainwrights, carpenters, and the poor clustered on the bank to the south. The city was a richly colored tapestry: the Great Gate on Kings-bridge, the maze of the Lower City, the marketplace, the tall houses in the Merchants' and the Gentry's quarters, the gardens of the Temple district, the palace. This last was the city's crown and southern border. Beyond it, the royal forest stretched for leagues. It was not as lovely as Berat nor as colorful as Udayapur, but it was Alanna's place.
”
”
Tamora Pierce
“
The less you demand total fulfillment from relationships, the more you can appreciate them for the beautiful tapestries they are, in which absolute and relative, perfect and imperfect, infinite and finite are marvelously interwoven. You can stop fighting the shifting tides of relative love and learn to ride them instead. And you come to appreciate more fully the simple, ordinary heroism involved in opening to another person and forging real intimacy.
”
”
John Welwood (Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart)
“
If you want to draw some advantage from your history, you must accept not only this miracle but also many others. In memory, everything can become miraculous. All you have to do is wish it, and freezing winter turns into spring, miserable rooms fill up with golden tapestries, murderers turn good, and children who cry out of loneliness receive caring teachers who are really the children themselves moved back from adulthood to their early years. Yes, my daughter, the past is not fixed and unalterable. With faith and will we can change it, not erasing its darkness but adding lights to it to make it more and more beautiful, the way a diamond is cut.
”
”
Alejandro Jodorowsky (Where the Bird Sings Best)
“
In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled “Bordando el Manto Terrestre,” were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in the tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried. No one had noticed; she wore dark green bubble shades. For a moment she’d wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens space and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry. She had looked down at her feet and known, then, because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had take her away from nothing, there’d been no escape. What did she so desire escape from? Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all. Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49)
“
Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.
Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.
She was his saving grace.
”
”
Julie Garwood (Saving Grace)
“
Here, Earth-born, over the lilt of the water,
Lisping its music and bearing a burden of light,
Bosoming day as a laughing and radiant daughter…
Here we may whisper unheard, unafraid of the night.
Walking alone…was it splendor, or what, we were bound with?
Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair?
Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the ground with
Tapestries, mystical, faint in the breathless air.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
It was Aileron who saw the light blaze in Arthur's face. The Warrior leaped from his horse down into the road and, at the top of his great voice, cried 'Cavall!'
Bracing his legs, he opened wide his arms and was knocked flying, nonetheless, by the wild leap of the dog. Over and over they rolled, the dog yelping in intoxicated delight, the Warrior mock growling in his chest. . . .
This is' asked Aileron with gentle irony, 'your dog?
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2))
“
Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood
you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour
will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.
And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.
- Before Summer Rain
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“
Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, ‘Look at my beautiful home! Isn’t it fine?’ And not, ‘Look at the home so-and-so has built.’ Thus we shouldn’t cry, ‘Look what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!’ But rather, ‘Look at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?
”
”
Roman Payne
“
Paralytic
It happens. Will it go on? ----
My mind a rock,
No fingers to grip, no tongue,
My god the iron lung
That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not
Let me relapse
While the day outside glides by like ticker tape.
The night brings violets,
Tapestries of eyes,
Lights,
The soft anonymous
Talkers: 'You all right?'
The starched, inaccessible breast.
Dead egg, I lie
Whole
On a whole world I cannot touch,
At the white, tight
Drum of my sleeping couch
Photographs visit me ----
My wife, dead and flat, in 1920 furs,
Mouth full of pearls,
Two girls
As flat as she, who whisper 'We're your daughters.'
The still waters
Wrap my lips,
Eyes, nose and ears,
A clear
Cellophane I cannot crack.
On my bare back
I smile, a buddha, all
Wants, desire
Falling from me like rings
Hugging their lights.
The claw
Of the magnolia,
Drunk on its own scents,
Asks nothing of life.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
“
Today 5:14 p.m.
"Mrrrrrowl. Mrrrrrowl."
"Ow! Ow, stupid cat! Ahem. You told me, 'stop calling, Isabelle,' but I'm not the one calling you. Church is calling you. Mine are merely the fingers that work the phone.
"See, here's something you may not have known before you committed your recent rash acts. Our cat, Church, and your cat, Chairman Meow? They're in love. I've never seen such love before. I never knew such love could exist in the heart of a... cat. Some people say that love between two dude cats is wrong, but I think it's beautiful. Love makes Church happier than I've ever seen him. Nothing makes him happy like Chairman Meow. Not tuna. Not shredding centuries-old tapestries. Nothing. Please don't keep these cats apart. Please don't take the joy of love away from Church.
"Look, this is really just a warning for your own good. If you keep Church and Chairman Meow apart, Church will start to get angry.
"You wouldn't like Church when he's angry."
Beep
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Bane Chronicles)
“
The odd group of well-wishers slowly moved down the hallway as Moshe’s sobs cascaded up and down the walls, bouncing from one side to the other. The discourse on Doc Roberts was forgotten now as the group tromped forward, a ragtag assortment of travelers moving fifteen feet as if it were fifteen thousand miles, slow travelers all, arrivals from different lands, making a low trek through a country that claimed to be so high, a country that gave them so much yet demanded so much more. They moved slowly, like fusgeyers, wanderers seeking a home in Europe, or erú West African tribesmen herded off a ship on a Virginia shore to peer back across the Atlantic in the direction of their homeland one last time, moving toward a common destiny, all of them—Isaac, Nate, and the rest—into a future of American nothing. It was a future they couldn’t quite see, where the richness of all they had brought to the great land of promise would one day be zapped into nothing, the glorious tapestry of their history boiled down to a series of ten-second TV commercials, empty holidays, and sports games filled with the patriotic fluff of red, white, and blue, the celebrants cheering the accompanying dazzle without any idea of the horrible struggles and proud pasts of their forebears who had made their lives so easy. The collective history of this sad troupe moving down the hospital corridor would become tiny blots in an American future that would one day scramble their proud histories like eggs, scattering them among the population while feeding mental junk to the populace on devices that would become as common and small as the hot dog that the dying woman thought she smelled; for in death, Chona had smelled not a hot dog but the future, a future in which devices that fit in one’s pocket and went zip, zap, and zilch delivered a danger far more seductive and powerful than any hot dog, a device that children of the future would clamor for and become addicted to, a device that fed them their oppression disguised as free thought. Had the group of stragglers moping down the hallway seen that future, they would have all turned en masse and rushed from the hospital out into the open air and collapsed onto the lawn and sobbed like children. As it was, they moved like turtles toward Chona’s room as Moshe’s howl rang out. They were in no hurry. The journey ahead was long. There was no promise ahead. There was no need to rush now.
”
”
James McBride (The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store)