Y Letter Quotes

I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. Although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

Before I could say anything, Jamie began writing giant letters over the words with his index finger. F-U-C-K Y-O-U. My sentiments exactly.

Y. That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over.

Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué." ("The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route.") [Letter to Armand Barbès, 12 May 1867]

That's a wonderful word: maybe. I watched maybe stretch out, long and starry. The letter y looked as fiery as the tail of a comet; it looped around our shoulders, connecting us all together.

I couldn't get to sleep. The book lay nearby. A thin object on the divan. So strange. Between two cardboard covers were noises, doors, howls, horses, people. All side by side, pressed tightly against one another. Boiled down to little black marks. Hair, eyes, voices, nails, legs, knocks on doors, walls, blood, beards, the sound of horseshoes, shouts. All docile, blindly obedient to the little black marks. The letters run in mad haste, now here, now there. The a's, f's, y's, k's all run. They gather together to create a horse or a hailstorm. They run again. Now they create a dagger, a night, a murder. Then streets, slamming doors, silence. Running and running. Never stopping.

The guy was sexy with a capital S-E-X-Y. Yes, that’s right, all of his letters deserved to be capitalized.

Pero siempre me gustan los libros equivocados. Y las películas equivocadas. Y la gente equivocada.

There are a number of things a woman can tell about a man who is roughly twenty-nine years old, sitting in the cab of a pickup truck at 3:37 in the afternoon on a weekday, facing the Pacific, writing furiously on the back of pink invoice slips. Such a man may or may not be employed, but regardless, there is mystery there. If this man is with a dog, then that's good, because it means he's capable of forming relationships. But if the dog is a male dog, that's probably a bad sign, because it means the guy is likely a dog, too. A girl dog is much better, but if the guy is over thirty, any kind of dog is a bad sign regardless, because it means he's stopped trusting humans altogether. In general, if nothing else, guys my age with dogs are going to be work. Then there's stubble: stubble indicates a possible drinker, but if he's driving a van or a pickup truck, he hasn't hit bottom yet, so watch out, honey. A guy writing something on a clipboard while facing the ocean at 3:37 P.M. may be writing poetry, or he may be writing a letter begging someone for forgiveness. But if he's writing real words, not just a job estimate or something business-y, then more likely than not this guy has something emotional going on, which could mean he has a soul.

Ningún hombre sabe, hasta que llega el momento, qué profundidades hay en su interior. Para algunos hombres no llega nunca; dejémoslos descansar y demos gracias. Para mí, tú la has traído, tú la has forzado, y el fondo de ese mar embravecido se ha alzado desde entonces... Te amo. Lo que quieren decir otros hombres cuando usan esa expresión no lo sé; lo que quiero decir yo es que estoy bajo la influencia de una atracción terrible, que he resistido en vano y que me domina. Puedes arrastrarme al fuego, puedes arrastrarme a la horca, puedes arrastrarme a la muerte, puedes arrastrarme a todo aquello que siempre he evitado, puedes arrastrarme a cualquier peligro y cualquier desgracia. A eso y a la confusión de mis pensamientos, que es tal que no valgo para nada, es a lo que me refiero cuando digo que eres mi ruina.

Ocurrió que el cerebro no pudo soportar más las preocupaciones y dolores que le habían sido impuestos. Y entonces dijo: "Me doy por vencido; pero si alguien sigue interesado en mantener la unidad, que me alivie y recoja parte de mi carga; así tiraremos un poco más".

La mejor forma de expulsar al Diablo, si no se rinde ante el texto de las Escrituras, es mofarse y no hacerle caso porque no puede soportar el desprecio.” Lutero

You're not from around here, are you? Can't be. Why would we name it I-YOU-POO-Y? Really? Say the letters. I-U-P-U-I.

[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

To Mr. Jones, she said, imagine you're looking up at a blue sky, and imagine a tiny airplane skywriting the letter Z. Then let the wind erase the letter. Then imagine the plane writing the letter Y. Let the wind erase it. Then the letter X. Erase it. Then the letter W. Let the wind erase it.

Y That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don't have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let's make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Upside-down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand. Y, a Greet letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century -- a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.

Okay.' I can feel the letters vomit off my tongue. O. K. A. Y. I watch the vet insert the syringe into the catheter and inject the second drug. And then the adventures come flooding back: The puppy farm. The gentle untying of the shoelace. THIS! IS! MY! HOME! NOW! Our first night together. Running on the beach. Sadie and Sophie and Sophie Dee. Shared ice-cream cones. Thanksgivings. Tofurky. Car rides. Laughter. Eye rain. Chicken and rice. Paralysis. Surgery. Christmases. Walks. Dog parks. Squirrel chasing. Naps. Snuggling. 'Fishful Thinking.' The adventure at sea. Gentle kisses. Manic kisses. More eye rain. So much eye rain. Red ball. The veterinarian holds a stethoscope up to Lily's chest, listening for her heartbeat. All dogs go to heaven. 'Your mother's name is Witchie-Poo.' I stroke Lily behind her ears the way that used to calm her. 'Look for her.' OH FUCK IT HURTS. I barely whisper. 'She will take care of you.

La comparación del pájaro en mano y ciento volando sólo se puede aplicar aquí muy relativamente. En la mano no tengo nada, volando está todo y sin embargo -así lo determinan las condiciones del combate y las necesidades de la vida- tengo que elegir la nada.

Sobre la falda tenia el libro abierto; en mi mejilla tocaban sus rizos negros; no veiamos las letras ninguno, creo; mas guardabamos entrambos hondo silencio. Cuanto duro? Ni aun entonces pude saberlo; solo se que no se oia mas que el aliento, que apresurado escapaba del labio seco. Solo se que nos volvimos los dos a un tiempo, y nuestros ojos se hallaron, y sono un beso. Creacion de Dante era el libro, era su Infierno. Cuando a el bajamos los ojos, yo dije, tremulo: Comprendes ya que un poema cabe en un verso?" Y ella respondio, encendida: Ya lo comprendo!" On her skirt she had an open book on my cheek her black locks of hair we didn't see the letters any of them, I think though we kept between us a deep silence How much did it last? Not even then I could know I only know that I couldn't hear anything more than her breath that fastly went out of her dry lips I only know that we both turned our sight at same time and our eyes met the other and a kiss was heard The creation of Dante was the book it was its Inferno when we both turned down the eyes to it I said, trembling: 'Do you already understand that a poem fits in a verse?'' And she answered lightened up: I understand!

Y, sin embargo, mentiría si dijera que la extraño. Es el hechizo más perfecto y más doloroso. Usted está aquí, igual que yo y con mayor intensidad aún; allí donde yo estoy, está usted, como yo y más intensamente aún. No bromeo. A veces imagino que usted -que está aquí- extraña mi presencia y pregunta: "¿Pero dónde está? ¿Acaso no escribía diciendo que estaba en Merano? [...] El día es tan corto. Transcurre y termina con usted y fuera de usted sólo hay unas pocas nimiedades. Apenas me queda un rato para escribirle a la verdadera Milena, porque la Milena más verdadera aún ha estado aquí todo el día, en la habitación, en el balcón, en las nubes.

Cualquier infatuación sexual, mientras se proponga el matrimonio como fin, será considerada “amor”, y el “amor” será usado para excusar al hombre de toda culpa, y para protegerle de todas las consecuencias de casarse con una pagana, una idiota o una libertina.

My dearest Mary, Both my words and my conduct at our last meeting were ungentlemanly - born of haste and high emotion, rather than friendship and good judgement - and yet I cannot find it within me to apologize. I am glad I kissed you; glad to have revelled in your scent, your taste, the touch of your hands; glad, even, to have quarrelled with you because during those moments of anger, I was in your presence. Mary, you are the most singular woman I know: intelligent, brave and honest, and I crave your friendship. I confess to only the haziest notion of what I ask, having never been friends with a woman before. My friendships are male and conventional; pleasant and without distinction. But a friendship with you would be a bright, new, rare thing - if you would do me the honour. I expect that what I ask is impossible. But it is sweet to dream, Mary, and thus I tender one last, insolent, unapologetic request: write to me only if you can say yes. Yours, James

[...] That's Beethoven's fifth... Da da da dum! Heh heh. That's morse code, y'know. Uh, morse code? Hmm. It's morse code for the letter "v".

Mais dons ce monde, il n'y a rien d'assure que le mort et les impots.

The only day you should never write and achieve your goals is when the day ends with the letter y.

Hay una diferencia esencial entre el riesgo que puede arruinarte y el que te permite enfrentar el mundo.

In the letters he sends to his friend, Werther recounts both the events of his life and the effects of his passion; but it is literature which governs the mixture. For if I keep a journal, we may doubt that this journal relates, strictly speaking, to events. The events of amorous life are so trivial that they gain access to writing only by an immense effort: one grows discouraged writing what, by being written, exposes its own platitude: "I ran into X, who was with Y" "Today X didn't call me" "X was in a bad mood," etc.: who would see a story in that? The infinitesimal event exists only in its huge reverberation: Journal of my reverberations (of my wounds, my joys, my interpretations, my rationalizations, my impulses): who would understand anything in that? Only the Other could write my love story, my novel.

the transliterated name and address of the addresser of the 3 letters in reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated quadrilinear cryptogram (vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. MH/Y. IM:

Querido padre: Me preguntaste una vez por qué afirmaba yo que te tengo miedo. Como de costumbre, no supe qué contestar, en parte, justamente por el miedo que te tengo, y en parte porque en los fundamentos de ese miedo entran demasiados detalles como para que pueda mantenerlos reunidos en el curso de una conversación. Y, aunque intente ahora contestarte por escrito, mi respuesta será, no obstante, muy incomprensible, porque también al escribir el miedo y sus consecuencias me inhiben ante ti, y porque la magnitud del tema excede mi memoria y mi entendimiento.

Escúchame ahora. Coge esta carta. Recorta las líneas. Reordénalas colocando la sección uno junto a la sección tres y la sección dos junto a la sección cuatro. Luego léelas en voz alta y oirás Mi Voz. ¿La voz de quién? Escucha. Recorta y reordena siguiendo cualquier combinación. Lee en voz alta. No puedo por menos que oírte. No lo pienses. No teorices. Pruébalo.

Cuando empezaron a decir que la literatura norteamericana no existía y que la inglesa era mala, perdí la compostura y les dije que la literatura española merecía estar en el retrete, colgada de un clavo junto a los catálogos atrasados de Montgomery Ward.

ah ! tu m'as appris à comprendre bien des choses ! le visage d'une jeune fille, d'une femme, est forcément pour un homme un objet extrêmement variable ; le plus souvent, il n'est qu'un miroir, où se reflète tantôt une passion, tantôt un enfantillage, tantôt une lassitude, et il s'efface si vite, comme une image dans une glace, qu'un homme peut sans difficulté oublier le visage d'une femme, d'autant mieux que l'âge y fait alterner l'ombre et la lumière et que des costumes nouveaux l'encadrent différemment.

Mientras estaba tendido allí, a un paso de mí yacía un escarabajo, patas arriba, desesperado. No podía enderezarse, me habría gustado ayudarlo, era tan fácil hacerlo, bastaba un paso y un empujoncito para brindarle una ayuda efectiva. Pero lo olvidé a causa de la carta. Además no podía ponerme de pie. Por fin, una lagartija logró que volviera a tomar conciencia de la vida que me rodeaba. Su camino la llevó hasta el escarabajo, que ya estaba totalmente inmóvil. De modo que no fue un accidente, me dije, sino una lucha mortal, el raro espectáculo de la muerte natural de un animal. Pero la lagartija al deslizarse por encima del escarabajo, lo enderezó. Por uno instantes continuó inmóvil, como muerto, pero luego trepó la pared como la cosa más natural. Es probable que eso me haya brindado, de alguna manera, un poco de coraje. Lo cierto es que me puse de pie, bebí leche y le escribí a usted.

Vivir en el tiempo equivale a cambiar. La sequía y monotonía que tu paciente está atravesando ahora no son, como gustosamente supones, obra tuya; son meramente un fenómeno natural. Nuestro objetivo de guerra es un mundo en el que Nuestro Padre de las Profundidades haya absorbido en su interior a todos los demás seres; el Enemigo desea un mundo lleno de seres unidos a Él pero todavía distintos.

Es de gran importancia para la salud moral e intelectual de un hombre tener por compañeros otros hombres distintos a él, que no se interesen por sus ocupaciones, y que para conocer sus capacidades y saber en qué círculos se mueven le sea preciso salirse de sí mismo.

Tu mirada distraída me acarició sin quererlo y en el acto, en cuanto se encontró con la atención de mis ojos, se convirtió en aquella manera tuya de mirar a las mujeres —cómo me estremecieron los viejos recuerdos—, esa mirada tierna que te envuelve y a la vez te desnuda, que te rodea y casi te toca...

Podría ser que viviese una vida más real en su fuero interno que en el ambiente tan ingrato de la oficina del administrador. Las evocaciones del desfile, el tumulto de la batalla, las melodías de viejas músicas heroicas, escuchadas treinta años atrás, tales escenas y ecos estaban aún vivos en su recuerdo.

En la universidad, cuando las personas nos pregunten cómo nos conocimos, ¿Cómo les responderemos? La historia es: Crecimos juntos. Pero esa era más la historia con Josh. ¿Novios de preparatoria? Esa era la historia de Gen y Peter. Así que la nuestra ¿Cuál era? Supongo que diré que todo comenzó con una carta de amor.

I enjoyed watching you work. I love that word, enjoyed. It sounds small and polite, but it contains something big, passionate. In my head I see it as it should be, I think. The en- and the -ed should be small, but sturdy. Like bookends, or like hands, supporting something that’s lean and tall, but fragile and new. A fawn’s legs. J-O-Y.

Cuando abría los ojos en la oscuridad y sentía que estabas a mi lado, me asombraba de no ver el firmamento por encima de nosotros, hasta tal punto me sentía como en el cielo. No, nunca me he arrepentido, amor mío, de aquella noche. Aún recuerdo cómo dormías, cómo sentía tu respiración, tu cuerpo, y cómo lloré de felicidad en la penumbra.

Pues en cuanto consideramos la existencia de cada individuo como una habitación mayor o menor, queda de manifiesto que los más sólo llegan a conocer apenas un rincón de su aposento. Un sitio junto a la ventana. O bien alguna estrecha faja del entarimado, que van y vienen recorriendo de un lado para otro. Así disfrutan de alguna seguridad…

Considérez bien toutes les choses dont la perte nous tire des larmes et nous trouble le sens ; vous trouverez que ce qui nous afflige n’est pas tant ce que nous perdons que ce que nous croyons avoir perdu. Personne ne sent la perte que dans son imagination (opinionem). Celui qui se possède ne peut rien perdre ; mais il y en a bien peu qui sachent se posséder

El único bien, causa y soporte de la vida feliz, consiste en confiar en sí mismo.

Tú y yo nunca fuimos enemigos, Kitt. No exactamente.

Escríbeme una historia que no tenga fin, Kitt. Escríbeme y llena mis vacíos.

He caído en que todas mis cartas hablan de mi y no de ti. Me gustaría que me mostraras el mismo respeto.

La verdad es que, donde existen un corazón y una inteligencia, las enfermedades del cuerpo quedan coloreadas por las peculiaridades del uno y la otra.

El impulso universal convierte en un único y vasto corazón la suma de muchos corazones.

In the midst of a lofty heart, letters in this sequence ‘s,o,r.r,y’ exist not…but is set in the soul of he who seeks to preserve life.

J’ai reçu assez de dons intellectuels pour pouvoir tout sonder, tout aborder, tout saisir en formules claires ; on me croit supérieurement informée de bien des problèmes de la vie ; pourtant, là, tout au fond de moi, il y a une pelote agglutinée, quelque chose me retient dans une poigne de fer, et toute ma clarté de pensée ne m’empêche pas d’être bien souvent une pauvre godiche peureuse.

Aparecerá la mujer cuyo nombre ya no significará sólo algo opuesto al hombre, sino algo propio, independiente. Nada que haga pensar en complemento ni en límite, sino tan sólo en vida y en ser: el Humano femenino...

Que tú, dejados todos los asuntos, te apliques con tenacidad y te esfuerces en la sola tarea de hacerte cada día mejor, lo apruebo y me complazco de ello, y no sólo te animo a que perseveres, sino que además te lo ruego.

Other sources of puzzling words were the science fiction magazines of the times. It was still the bug-eyed space-alien monster era, so these stories featured many languages containing high-value Scrabble letters such as Q, X, and Y.

Un amigo es alguien que te da total libertad para ser tú mismo y, sobre todo, para sentir o no sentir. Cualquier cosa que sientas estará bien para ellos. En eso consiste el verdadero amor, en dejar a una persona ser lo que realmente es".

A lo largo de los años he descubierto que aquello más valioso es lo que se suele dar a menudo por sentado, y que tendemos a dejar que el tiempo avance a tal velocidad que no podemos percibir cada uno de los detalles que conforman el todo.

If you’ve ever wondered what we’re missing by sitting at computers in cubicles all day, follow Jessica DuLong when she loses her desk job and embarks on this unlikely but fantastic voyage. Deeply original, riveting to read, and soul-bearingly honest, "My River Chronicles" is a surprisingly infectious romance about a young woman falling in love with a muscle-y old boat. As DuLong learns to navigate her way through a man’s world of tools and engines, and across the swirling currents of a temperamental river, her book also becomes a love letter to a nation. In tune with the challenges of our times, DuLong reminds us of the skills and dedication that built America, and inspires us to renew ourselves once again.

¿Vivimos por nuestro pasado o vivimos para nuestro futuro, para lo que vendrá? ¿Escogemos perder el tiempo echando la vista atrás, observando aquello que ya ha ocurrido y no podemos cambiar, o mantenemos la vista al frente, en lo que podemos ver?

After the curtain had fallen, a raucous display of malice had erupted from the gallery, and the ensuing scene, a quarter of an hour in which Hr'y's friends close to the stage attempted to applaud over the hoots and jeers of callous roughs in the shadows - a spectacle that culminated with the play's nervous director appearing on stage to quickly apologize for the production - is one of the better documented episodes in the many biographies of Hr'y's life. What's worth revisiting is the way he described it once he mustered the courage to put it all in a letter. The play had never really had a chance, he wrote. His 'extremely human' effort was met by a mob that responded with 'roars (like those of a cage of beasts at some infernal 'Zoo')

Si votre vie quotidienne vous paraît pauvre, ne l'accusez pas; accusez-vous plutôt, dites-vous que vous n'êtes pas assez poète pour en convoquer les richesses. Pour celui qui crée, il n'y a pas, en effet, de pauvreté ni de lieu indigent, indifférent.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Debes haberte preguntado muchas veces por qué el Enemigo no hace más uso de Sus poderes para hacerse sensiblemente presente a las almas humanas. Para Él, sería inútil meramente dominar una voluntad humana. Las criaturas han de ser una con Él, pero también ellas mismas. Él quiere que aprendan a andar y debe, por tanto, retirar Su mano; y sólo con que de verdad exista en ellos la voluntad de andar, se siente complacido hasta por sus tropezones. De ahí que las oraciones ofrecidas en estado de sequía sean las que más le agradan.

Et si tu penses avoir fait le bon choix, sache au moins qu'il y a, quelque part dans le monde, un homme qui t'aime et qui comprend à quel point tu es précieuse, intelligente et douce. Un homme qui t'a toujours aimé et qui, pour son plus grand malheur, t'aimera toujours.

Creemos que conocemos a una persona, pero tanto ella como nosotros nos encontramos en constante cambio. Comprendí repentinamente que en eso consiste estar vivos. Las placas invisibles de nuestro interior se desplazan con el fin de alinearse y formar la persona en la cual nos convertiremos.

Londres es un desierto sin tus delicados pies, y todos los ojales se han puesto de luto: ortigas y cardos «es lo único que debiera llevarse». Escríbeme unas líneas y recibe todo mi amor -ahora y por siempre. Siempre, y con devoción. Pero no tengo palabras para decirte cuánto te quiero. Oscar

[Y]ou are passing through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have been made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end. Don’t think, don’t feel, any more than you can help, don’t conclude or decide—don’t do anything but wait.

Toda la filosofía del Infierno descansa en la admisión del axioma de que una cosa no es otra cosa y, en especial, de que un ser no es otro ser. Mi bien es mi bien, y tu bien es el tuyo. Lo que gana uno, otro lo pierde. Hasta un objeto inanimado es lo que es excluyendo a todos los demás objetos del espacio que ocupa; si se expande, lo hace apartando a otros objetos, o absorbiéndolos. Un ser hace lo mismo. Con los animales, la absorción adopta la forma de comer; para nosotros, representa la succión de la voluntad y la libertad de un ser más débil por uno más fuerte. “Ser” significa “ser compitiendo”.

A une époque de sa vie, il y avait de cela de nombreuses années, elle avait perdu sa foi en Dieu. Elle l'avait maudit, haï, accusé d'être responsable de tous les maux de la terre. Mais le mal n'était pas une création de Dieu. L'homme avait inventé le mal. Finalement, elle avait réussi à pardonner à Dieu.

From his beach bag the man took an old penknife with a red handle and began to etch the signs of the letters onto nice flat pebbles. At the same time, he spoke to Mondo about everything there was in the letters, about everything you could see in them when you looked and when you listened. He spoke about A, which is like a big fly with its wings pulled back; about B, which is funny, with its two tummies; or C and D, which are like the moon, a crescent moon or a half-full moon; and then there was O, which was the full moon in the black sky. H is high, a ladder to climb up trees or to reach the roofs of houses; E and F look like a rake and a shovel; and G is like a fat man sitting in an armchair. I dances on tiptoes, with a little head popping up each time it bounces, whereas J likes to swing. K is broken like an old man, R takes big strides like a soldier, and Y stands tall, its arms up in the air, and it shouts: help! L is a tree on the river's edge, M is a mountain, N is for names, and people waving their hands, P is asleep on one paw, and Q is sitting on its tail; S is always a snake, Z is always a bolt of lightning, T is beautiful, like the mast on a ship, U is like a vase, V and W are birds, birds in flight; and X is a cross to help you remember.

Tengo una guerra en marcha con la Warner. Tengo una guerra en marcha con el jardinero. Tengo una guerra en marcha con un hombre que vino a arreglar el tocadiscos y arruinó dos discos LP. Tengo varias guerras en marcha con gente de la televisión. A ver quién más… oh, no importa. Usted ya conoce a Chandler. Siempre peleando por algo.

Ceux qui reprochent à nos ancêtres d'avoir été sottement crédules oublient, d'abord qu'on peut également être sottement incrédule, et ensuite qu'en fait de crédulité, il n'y a rien de tel que les illusions dont vivent les soi-disant destructeurs d'illusions ; car on peut remplacer une crédulité simple par une crédulité compliquée [...]

The glint does not come from a living being, but from an antique pocket watch - eighteen-carat gold encased with mother of pearl, engraved with the lines from a poem: "Arriving there is what you are destined for, But do not hurry the journey at all..." And there on the back are two letters, or more precisely, the same letter written twice: Y & Y

Hace poco me preguntaste por qué decía que te tenía miedo. Como de costumbre, no supe qué contestarte, en parte, precisamente, por el miedo que me das, y en parte porque son demasiados los detalles que fundamentan ese miedo, muchos más de los que podría coordinar a medias mientras hablo. Su magnitud excede en mucho tanto mi memoria como mi entendimiento.

Surprisingly, palindromes appear not just in witty word games but also in the structure of the male-defining Y chromosome. The Y's full genome sequencing was completed only in 2003. This was the crowning achievement of a heroic effort, and it revealed that the powers of preservation of this sex chromosome have been grossly underestimated. Other human chromosome pairs fight damaging mutations by swapping genes. Because the Y lacks a partner, genome biologists had previously estimated that its cargo was about to dwindle away in perhaps as little as five million years. To their amazement, however, the researchers on the sequencing team discovered that the chromosome fights withering with palindromes. About six million of its fifty million DNA letters form palindromic sequences-sequences that read the same forward and backward on the two strands of the double helix. These copies not only provide backups in case of bad mutations, but also allow the chromosome, to some extent, to have sex with itself-arms can swap position and genes are shuffled. As team leader David Page of MIT has put it, "The Y chromosome is a hall of mirrors.

No, hay algo más para hoy: si usted distrae un solo minuto de su sueño para dedicarlo a la tarea de traducción será como si me estuviera maldiciendo. Porque si algún día se me somete a juicio, no habrá largas investigaciones, bastará con afirmar: él la privó del sueño. Eso bastará para que me condenen, y con razón. De modo que estoy luchando por mí cuando le ruego que no vuelva a hacer algo así.

Querido, querido muchacho, eres para mí más de lo que nadie piensa; eres la atmósfera de belleza a través de la cual veo la vida; eres la encarnación de todas las cosas amables. Cuando no estamos en armonía los colores huyen para mí de las cosas, pero en realidad nunca estamos sin armonía. Pienso en ti día y noche. Ecríbeme pronto, ¡tú muchacho de mielado cabello! Soy siempre devotamente tuyo. Oscar

He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes o the god of the hunt. One day some guys with spears come over the ridge, perform all kinds of meanness, take over, and the new guys rename the town B. Whereupon they hang around the communal fire sharpening arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. Some climatic tragedy occurs — not carving the correct tributary figurines probably — and the people of B move farther south, where word is there’s good fishing, at least according to those who wander to B just before being cooked for dinner. Another tribe of unlucky souls stops for the night in the emptied village, looks around at the natural defenses provided by the landscape, and decides to stay awhile. It’s a while lot better than their last digs — what with the lack of roving tigers and such — plus it comes with all the original fixtures. they call the place C, after their elder, who has learned that pretending to talk to spirits is a fun gag that gets you stuff. Time passes. More invasions, more recaptures, D, E, F, and G. H stands as it is for a while. That ridge provides some protection from the spring floods, and if you keep a sentry up there you can see the enemy coming for miles. Who wouldn’t want to park themselves in that real estate? The citizens of H leave behind cool totems eventually toppled by the people of I, whose lack of aesthetic sense if made up for by military acumen. J, K, L, adventures in thatched roofing, some guys with funny religions from the eastern plains, long-haired freaks from colder climes, the town is burned to the ground and rebuilt by still more fugitives. This is the march of history. And conquest and false hope. M falls to plague, N to natural disaster — same climatic tragedy as before, apparently it’s cyclical. Mineral wealth makes it happen for the O people, and the P people are renowned for their basket weaving. No one ever — ever — mentions Q. The dictator names the city after himself; his name starts with the letter R. When the socialists come to power they spend a lot of time painting over his face, which is everywhere. They don’t last. Nobody lasts because there’s always somebody else. They all thought they owned it because they named it and that was their undoing. They should have kept the place nameless. They should have been glad for their good fortune, and left it at that. X, Y, Z.

Pero en esto yerran los jóvenes tan a menudo y tan gravemente. Ellos, en cuya naturaleza está el no tener paciencia, se arrojan y se entregan, unos en brazos de otros, cuando les sobrecoge el amor. Se prodigan y desparraman tal como son, aun sin desbrozar, con todo su desorden y su confusión... Mas ¿qué ha de suceder luego? Qué ha de hacer la vida con ese montón de afanes truncos, que ellos llaman su convivir, su unión, y que, de ser posible, desearían poder llamar su felicidad, y aún más: ¡su porvenir! Ahí se pierde cada cual a sí mismo por amor al otro. Pierde igualmente al otro, y a muchos más que aun habían de llegar. Pierde también un sin fin de horizontes y de posibilidades, trocando el flujo y reflujo de posibilidades de sutil presentimiento por un estéril desconcierto, del cual ya nada puede brotar.

Además, quiero verte a ti. Realmente es absurdo, pero no puedo vivir sin ti. ¡Eres tan deseable, tan maravilloso! Pienso en ti durante todo el día y echo de menos tu encanto, tu adolescente belleza, la brillante espada de tu ingenio, la delicada fantasía de tu talento, tan sorprendente siempre en tus repentinos vuelos, cual golondrina, hacia el norte o el sur, hacia el sol o la luna -y sobre todo, a ti mismo.

Hace ya mucho que no le escribo, señora Milena, y también hoy le escribo por una casualidad. En realidad no tengo que disculparme de mi silencio, usted ya sabe cómo odio las cartas. Toda la desdicha de mi vida – no quiero con esto quejarme, sino hacer una observación de interés general- proviene por así decir de las cartas o de la posibilidad de escribirlas. Las personas casi nunca me han traicionado, pero las cartas siempre, y en verdad no las ajenas, sino justamente las mías. En mi caso es una desgracia muy especial, de la que no quiero seguir hablando, pero al mismo tiempo es una desgracia también general. La sencilla posibilidad de escribir cartas debe de haber provocado -desde un punto de vista meramente teórico- una terrible desintegración de almas en el mundo. Es en efecto una conversación con fantasmas ( y para peor no sólo con el fantasma del destinatario, sino también con el del remitente) que se desarrolla entre líneas en la carta que uno escribe, o aun en una serie de cartas, donde cada una corrobora la otra y puede referirse a ella como testigo. ¿De dónde habrá surgido la idea de que las personas podían comunicarse mediante cartas? Se puede pensar en una persona distante, se puede aferrar a una persona cercana, todo lo demás queda más allá de las fuerzas humanas. Escribir cartas, sin embargo, significa desnudarse ante los fantasmas, que lo esperan ávidamente. Los besos por escrito no llegan a su destino, se los beben por el camino los fantasmas. Con este abundante alimento se multiplican, en efecto, enormemente. La humanidad lo percibe y lucha por evitarlo; y para eliminar en lo posible lo fantasmal entre las personas y lograr una comunicación natural, que es la paz de las almas, ha inventado el ferrocarril, el automóvil, el aeroplano, pero ya no sirven, son evidentemente descubrimientos hechos en el momento del desastre, el bando opuesto es tanto más calmo y poderoso, después del correo inventó el telégrafo, el teléfono, la telegrafía sin hilos. Los fantasmas no se morirán de hambre, y nosotros en cambio pereceremos.

Los editores y otros deberían dejar de preocuparse por la pérdida de clientela que puede causarles la televisión. El tipo que puede soportar un trío de anuncios de desodorantes para mirar a Flashgun Casey y tragarse los elogios a cervezas o a planes usuarios de crédito para poder ver a un par de boxeadores de cuarta frotándose las narices contra las cuerdas no es alguien que vaya a perder tiempo leyendo libros.

Escribió su nombre y contempló cómo la tinta se secaba poco a poco. El placer de la página en blanco, que al principio siempre olía a misterio y a promesa, se desvaneció por ensalmo. Tan pronto como uno empezaba a colocar las primeras palabras comprobaba que en la escritura, como en la vida, la distancia entre intenciones y resultados iba pareja con la inocencia con que se acometían unas y se aceptaban los otros.

[...] si disponemos nuestra vida según el principio que nos aconseja mantenernos siempre en lo difícil, lo que nos parecía extraño, se nos transformará en algo infinitamente fiel y digno de toda confianza. [...] Quizá todos los dragones de nuestra vida sean princesas que sólo esperan vernos una vez hermosos y valientes. Quizá todo lo horrible, en el fondo, sea sólo una forma de desamparo que solicita nuestra ayuda.

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

En efecto, aquellas mujeres, que acudían a la vez a su pensamiento, se estorbaban las unas a las otras y se empequeñecían, como bajo un mismo nivel de amor que las igualaba. Cogiendo, pues, a puñados las cartas mezcladas, se divirtió durante unos minutos dejándolas caer en cascadas, de la mano derecha a la mano izquierda. Finalmente, aburrido, cansado, Rodolfo fue a colocar de nuevo la caja en el armario diciéndose: —¡Qué cantidad de cuentos!

Y a la vez quede expresado aquí el ruego: lea lo menos que pueda cosas estético-críticas: o son opiniones partidistas, petrificadas y vaciadas de sentido en su endurecimiento contra la vida, o son hábiles juegos de palabras, en que hoy se saca una opinión y mañana la opuesta. Las obras de arte son de una infinita soledad, y con nada se pueden alcanzar menos que con la crítica. Sólo el amor puede captarlas y retenerlas, y sólo él puede tener razón frente a ellas.

¿Y el perro?” he asked the chauffeur. “Since a long time I haven’t seen him.” They had passed these people now for several years. At one time the girl, whose letters he had read last night, had exclaimed about the shame of it each time they passed the lean-to. “Why don’t you do something about it, then?” he had asked her. “Why do you always say things are so terrible and write so well about how terrible they are and never do anything about it?” This made the girl angry and she had stopped the car, gotten out, gone over to the lean-to and given the old woman twenty dollars and told her this was to help her find a better place to live and to buy something to eat. “Si, señorita,” the old woman said. “You are very amiable.” The next time they came by the couple were living in the same place and they waved happily. They had bought a dog. It was a white dog too, small and curly, probably not bred originally, Thomas Hudson thought, for the coal dust trade. “What do you think has become of the dog?” Thomas Hudson asked the chauffeur. “It probably died. They have nothing to eat.” “We must get them another dog,” Thomas Hudson said.

(...) rest content and satisfied that as you are caught in the noose of love it is one of worth and merit that has taken you, and one that has not only the the four S's that they say true lovers ought to have, but a complete alphabet; only listen to me and you will see how I can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and thinking, Amiable, Brave, Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay, Honorable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted, Rich, and the S's according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious: X does not suite him, for it is a rough letter; Y has been given already; and Z Zealous for your honour.

The fact that a human nose (use the letter X to symbolise the nose) is a necessary condition for spectacles to be perched in front of the eyes (use the letter Y to symbolise ‘spectacles being perched in front of the eyes’) does not entail that, because Y is the case, X is in itself necessary. ‘Necessity’ in the logical sense of ‘having to be so’ is not the same thing as the necessity involved in a ‘necessary condition’ – here things have to be so only relative to something else’s being the way it is. In the case of X’s being a necessary condition relative to Y, but not in itself necessary, X could have been different, and if it were so, there would, or at least might, be no Y. For example: if humans did not have noses, spectacles might be worn as goggles are, held before the eyes by an elastic strap. This is just how it is with the universe. We humans are the Y of which nature’s parameters are the X. We exist because the parameters are as they are; had they been different, we would not be here to know it. The fact that we exist because of how things happen to be with the universe’s structure and properties entails nothing about design or purpose. Depending on your point of view, it is just a lucky or unlucky result of how things happen to be. The universe’s parameters are not tuned on purpose for us to exist. It is the other way round: we exist because the laws happen to be as they are

Beneath the table, Ryder releases my hand and lays it open in my lap, palm up. And then I feel him tracing letters on my palm with his fingertip. I. L. O. V. E. Y.O.U. I can’t help myself--I shiver. I shiver a lot when Ryder’s around, it turns out. He seems to have that effect on me. “Are you cold, Jemma?” Laura Grace asks me. “Ryder, go get her a sweatshirt or something. You two are done eating, anyway. Go on. Take her into the living room and light the fire.” “Nah, I’m fine,” I say, just because I know the old Jemma would have argued. “Well, go work on your project, then. It’s warmer in the den.” “My room’s like an oven,” Ryder deadpans, and I have to stifle a laugh, pretending to cough instead.

He'd taken the sword, slung on his back, sandwiches and clean underwear in his pack, and the world, more or less, at his feet. In his pocket was the famous letter from the Patrician, the man who ruled the great fine city of Ankh-Morpork. At least, that's how his mother had referred to it. It certainly had an important-looking crest at the top, but the signature was something like "Lupin Squiggle, Sec'y, pp". Still, if it wasn't actually signed by the Patrician then it had certainly been written by someone who worked for him. Or in the same building. Probably the Patrician had at least known about the letter. In general terms. Not this letter, perhaps, but probably he knew about the existence of letters in general.

I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

In 1976, a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham in England demonstrated that randomizing letters in the middle of words had no effect on the ability of readers to understand sentences. In tihs setncene, for emalxpe, ervey scarbelmd wrod rmenias bcilasaly leibgle. Why? Because we are deeply accustomed to seeing letters arranged in certain patterns. Because the eye is in a rush, and the brain, eager to locate meaning, makes assumptions. This is true of phrases, too. An author writes “crack of dawn” or “sidelong glance” or “crystal clear” and the reader’s eye continues on, at ease with combinations of words it has encountered innumerable times before. But does the reader, or the writer, actually expend the energy to see what is cracking at dawn or what is clear about a crystal? The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential—X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw—actually saw—a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs. We need habit to get through a day, to get to work, to feed our children. But habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic. The eye sees something—gray-brown bark, say, fissured into broad, vertical plates—and the brain spits out tree trunk and the eye moves on. But did I really take the time to see the tree? I glimpse hazel hair, high cheekbones, a field of freckles, and I think Shauna. But did I take the time to see my wife? “Habitualization,” a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, “devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.” What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things—words, friends, apartments—as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.

I Won’t Write Your Obituary You asked if you could call to say goodbye if you were ever really gonna kill yourself. Sure, but I won’t write your obituary. I’ll commission it from some dead-end journalist who will say things like: “At peace… Better place… Fought the good fight…” Maybe reference the loving embrace of Capital-G-God at least 4 times. Maybe quote Charles fucking Bukowski. And I won’t stop them because I won’t write your obituary. But if you call me, I will write you a new sky, one you can taste. I will write you a D-I-Y cloud maker so on days when you can’t do anything you can still make clouds in whatever shape you want them. I will write you letters, messages in bottles, in cages, in orange peels, in the distance between here and the moon, in forests and rivers and bird songs. I will write you songs. I can’t write music, but I’ll find Rihanna, and I’ll get her to write you music if it will make you want to dance a little longer. I will write you a body whose veins are electricity because outlets are easier to find than good shrinks, but we will find you a good shrink. I will write you 1-800-273-8255, that’s the suicide hotline; we can call it together. And yeah, you can call me, but I won’t tell you it’s okay, that I forgive you. I won’t say “goodbye” or “I love you” one last time. You won’t leave on good terms with me, Because I will not forgive you. I won’t read you your last rights, absolve you of sin, watch you sail away on a flaming viking ship, my hand glued to my forehead. I will not hold your hand steady around a gun. And after, I won’t come by to pick up the package of body parts you will have left specifically for me. I’ll get a call like “Ma’am, what would you have us do with them?” And I’ll say, “Burn them. Feed them to stray cats. Throw them at school children. Hurl them at the sea. I don’t care. I don’t want them.” I don’t want your heart. It’s not yours anymore, it’s just a heart now and I already have one. I don’t want your lungs, just deflated birthday party balloons that can’t breathe anymore. I don’t want a jar of your teeth as a memento. I don’t want your ripped off skin, a blanket to wrap myself in when I need to feel like your still here. You won’t be there. There’s no blood there, there’s no life there, there’s no you there. I want you. And I will write you so many fucking dead friend poems, that people will confuse my tongue with your tombstone and try to plant daisies in my throat before I ever write you an obituary while you’re still fucking here. So the answer to your question is “yes”. If you’re ever really gonna kill yourself, yes, please, call me.

You’re just pushing your food around, aren’t you? You’ve barely taken two bites. I thought you loved Lou’s Cornish hens.” “I do. I’m sorry. All I can think about is that English project due this week.” I look over at Ryder with a faux scowl. “We’re already way behind--you’ve always got some excuse. We should probably work on it tonight.” “Probably so,” Ryder says with an exasperated-sounding sigh. “That’s the third project the two of you have been paired up on,” Mama says, shaking her head. “I hope you two can behave well enough to get your work done properly. No more arguing like the last time.” We’d pretended to fight over a calculus project. Yes, a calculus project. Is there really any such thing? “We’re trying really hard to behave,” I say, shooting Ryder a sidelong glance. “Right?” His cheeks pinken deliciously at the innuendo. I love it when Ryder blushes. Totally adorable. “Right,” he mumbles, his gaze fixed on his lap. Laura Grace gives us both a pointed look. “You two better learn to get along, you hear? You’re going to be spending a lot of time together for the next four years.” Four years. Just the two of us--away from our meddling mamas. I have to bite my lip to force back the smile that’s threatening to give us away. “She’s right,” Mama says, nodding. “The only way I’m allowing Jemma to go to NYU is if she promises not to go off campus without Ryder to escort her.” Escort me? What is it, the 1950s or something? Besides, I don’t think she realizes that NYU isn’t a traditional campus. There’s no fences or gates or anything like that. I guess she’ll find out when she comes to visit over Thanksgiving, but by then it’ll be too late. That’s what she gets for not looking over the application materials I gave her. “Fine,” I say, trying to sound slightly annoyed. “I promise.” Beneath the table, Ryder releases my hand and lays it open in my lap, palm up. And then I feel him tracing letters on my palm with his fingertip. I. L. O. V. E. Y.O.U. I can’t help myself--I shiver. I shiver a lot when Ryder’s around, it turns out. He seems to have that effect on me.

Il y a un curieux rapport - soit dit en passant - entre la fonction impériale et le rôle du fou de cour, et ce rapport semble d’ailleurs apparaître dans le fait que le costume des fous, comme celui de certains empereurs, était orné de clochettes, à l’instar de la robe sacrée du Grand Prêtre : le rôle du fou consistait à l’origine à dire publiquement ce que nul ne pouvait se permettre d’exprimer, et à introduire ainsi un élément de vérité dans un monde forcément gêné par d’inévitables conventions ; or cette fonction, qu’on le veuille ou non, fait penser à la sapience ou à l’ésotérisme du fait qu’elle brise à sa manière des « formes » au nom de « l’esprit qui souffle où il veut ». Mais seule la folie peut se permettre d’énoncer des vérités cruelles et de toucher aux idoles, précisément parce qu’elle reste à l’écart d’un certain engrenage humain, ce qui prouve que, dans ce monde de coulisses qu’est la société, la vérité pure et simple est démence. C’est sans doute pour cela que la fonction du fou de cour succomba en fin de compte au monde du formalisme et de l’hypocrisie : le fou intelligent finit par céder la place au bouffon, qui ne tarda pas à ennuyer et à disparaître.

The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.

Carta a James Sandoe, 14 de octubre de 1949. Ahora estoy leyendo “So little time”, de Marquand. Recuerdo, o creo recordar, que fue bastante maltratada cuando apareció, pero a mí me parece llena de ingenio agudo y vivacidad, y en general mucho más satisfactoria que “Point of no return”, que me resultó aburrida en su impacto total, aunque no aburrida mientras se la lee. También empecé “A sea change”, de Nigel Demis, que parece bien. Pero siempre me gustan los libros equivocados. Y las películas equivocadas. Y la gente equivocada. Y tengo la mala costumbre de empezar un libro y leer sólo lo necesario para asegurarme de que quiero leerlo, y ponerlo a un lado mientras rompo el hielo con otros dos. De ese modo, cuando me siento aburrido y deprimido, cosa que pasa con demasiada frecuencia, sé que tengo algo para leer tarde en la noche, que es cuando más leo, y no ese horrendo sentimiento desolador de no tener a nadie con quien hablar o a quien escuchar. ¿Por qué diablos esos idiotas de editores no dejan de poner fotos de escritores en sus sobrecubiertas? Compré un libro perfectamente bueno... estaba dispuesto a que me gustara, había leído sobre él, y entonces le echo una mirada a la foto del tipo y es obviamente un completo imbécil, una basura realmente abrumadora (fotogénicamente hablando) y no puedo leer el maldito libro. El hombre probablemente no tiene nada malo, pero para mí esa foto, esa tan espontánea foto con la corbata chillona desajustada, el tipo sentado en el borde de su escritorio con los pies en la silla (siempre se sienta así, piensa mejor). He pasado por esta comedia de la foto, sé lo que hace con uno.

Beneath the table, Ryder releases my hand and lays it open in my lap, palm up. And then I feel him tracing letters on my palm with his fingertip. I. L. O. V. E. Y.O.U. I can’t help myself--I shiver. I shiver a lot when Ryder’s around, it turns out. He seems to have that effect on me. “Are you cold, Jemma?” Laura Grace asks me. “Ryder, go get her a sweatshirt or something. You two are done eating, anyway. Go on. Take her into the living room and light the fire.” “Nah, I’m fine,” I say, just because I know the old Jemma would have argued. “Well, go work on your project, then. It’s warmer in the den.” “My room’s like an oven,” Ryder deadpans, and I have to stifle a laugh, pretending to cough instead. “Take her up there, then, before she catches cold. Go. Scoot.” Laura Grace waves her hands in our direction. We rise from the table in unison, both of us trying to look as unhappy about it as possible. Silently, I follow him out. As soon as the door swings shut behind us, he reaches for my hand and pulls me close. “Shh, listen,” I say, cocking my head toward the door. “I still can’t believe it,” comes Laura Grace’s muffled voice. “The both of them, going off to school together, just like we always hoped they would. They’ll find their way into each other’s hearts eventually, just you wait and see.” I hear my mom’s tinkling laughter. “I guess their plan to escape each other didn’t work out so well after all, did it, now? I’m sure they never even imagined--” “I just hope they don’t kill each other,” Daddy interrupts. “They’ll be fine,” Mr. Marsden answers. “Well, I guess we won this round, didn’t we?” Mama says, her voice full of obvious delight. I glance up at Ryder, dressed for Sunday dinner--khakis, plaid button-down with a T-shirt beneath. His spiky hair is sticking up haphazardly, his dimples wide as he smiles down at me with so much love in those deep, dark chocolate eyes of his that it lights up his whole face. And me? I’m so happy when I’m with him that Nan says I glow, that a bright, shining light seems to radiate off the pair of us wherever we go. Despite their gloating, it’s easy to see that they didn’t win, our parents. Nope. We won.

Cherchez en vous-mêmes. Explorez la raison qui vous commande d'écrire; examinez si elle plonge ses racines au plus profond de votre cour; faites-vous cet aveu : devriez-vous mourir s'il vous était interdit d'écrire. Ceci surtout : demandez-vous à l'heure la plus silencieuse de votre nuit; me faut-il écrire ? Creusez en vous-mêmes à la recherche d'une réponse profonde. Et si celle-ci devait être affirmative, s'il vous était donné d'aller à la rencontre de cette grave question avec un fort et simple "il le faut", alors bâtissez votre vie selon cette nécessité; votre vie, jusqu'en son heure la plus indifférente et la plus infime, doit être le signe et le témoignage de cette impulsion. Puis vous vous approcherez de la nature. Puis vous essayerez, comme un premier homme, de dire ce que vous voyez et vivez, aimez et perdez. N'écrivez pas de poèmes d'amour; évitez d'abord les formes qui sont trop courantes et trop habituelles : ce sont les plus difficiles, car il faut la force de la maturité pour donner, là où de bonnes et parfois brillantes traditions se présentent en foule, ce qui vous est propre. Laissez-donc les motifs communs pour ceux que vous offre votre propre quotidien; décrivez vos tristesses et vos désirs, les pensées fugaces et la foi en quelque beauté. Décrivez tout cela avec une sincérité profonde, paisible et humble, et utilisez, pour vous exprimer, les choses qui vous entourent, les images de vos rêves et les objets de votre souvenir. Si votre quotidien vous paraît pauvre, ne l'accusez pas; accusez-vous vous-même, dites-vous que vous n'êtes pas assez poète pour appeler à vous ses richesses; car pour celui qui crée il n'y a pas de pauvreté, pas de lieu pauvre et indifférent. Et fussiez-vous même dans une prison dont les murs ne laisseraient parvenir à vos sens aucune des rumeurs du monde, n'auriez-vous pas alors toujours votre enfance, cette délicieuse et royale richesse, ce trésor des souvenirs ? Tournez vers elle votre attention. Cherchez à faire resurgir les sensations englouties de ce vaste passé; votre personnalité s'affirmera, votre solitude s'étendra pour devenir une demeure de douce lumière, loin de laquelle passera le bruit des autres." (Lettres à un jeune poète)