Wilde 1997 Quotes

It never was any better, it never will be any better. It will only be richer or poorer, sadder but not wiser, until the very last day.

An Eastern Ballad I speak of love that comes to mind: The moon is faithful, although blind; She moves in thought she cannot speak. Perfect care has made her bleak. I never dreamed the sea so deep, The earth so dark; so long my sleep, I have become another child. I wake to see the world go wild.

It’s happening everywhere; commercial and housing development, along with the road network needed to support it, is the single greatest pressure on natural landscapes in the United States, and by its very pervasiveness the hardest to control. Between 1982 and 1997, developed land in the forty-eight contiguous states increased by 25 million acres—meaning a quarter of all the open land lost since European settlement disappeared in just those fifteen years. This isn’t a trend, it’s a juggernaut, and the worst may be yet to come. At this pace, by 2025 there will be 68 million more rural acres in development, an area about the size of Wyoming, and the total developed land in the United States will stand at a Texas-sized 174 million acres. Already, just the impervious covering we put on the land, the things like roads, sidewalks, and buildings we pave with asphalt or concrete, adds up to an area the size of Ohio.3

As he grew increasingly ill from AIDS complications, Monette published Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise (1994). Alternating between rage and remembrance as well as the personal and political, these ten essays offer insight into the life and mind of a powerful and determined writer galvanized by the injustices of his times. A film documentary of the author’s life, Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer’s End, was released in 1996. The slim, eloquent Sanctuary, a fable of same-sex love, posthumously appeared in 1997 and was hailed by critics as Monette’s final gift. He died at his home in Los Angeles on February 10, 1995, at the age of forty-nine and was survived by his father, brother, and final partner, Winston Wilde. Inscribed on his grave are the words Champion of His People.