For food was then our most pressing problem, and the progress of the regeneration schemes, and the advance of the cultivation lines on the maps, was followed with almost as much attention as an earlier generation had paid to battle fronts. In temperate countries, where man had succeeded in putting most forms of nature save …
Continue reading The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham – Quotes
I managed to move from the country to the city. I made the great journey between worlds. It kills some people, and drives some of us mad. [...]the red-tulip-flowered trees called kabakanjagala which means ‘the King loves me’. (King Ronald still loves us, though he does not really rule us. Now we are ruled by …
The notebook that burned, then. People who make a study of old documents have a name for this very kind of thing, a missing piece. lacuna, it's called. More memories bubble up every day. The sea cave in Isla Pixol, cold water on prickly boy-skin. Images, conversations, warnings. The first time seeing Frida in the …
'Do you want to fire me?' Juliet asked. 'You can, you know. I really wouldn't mind.' He clutched his hands to his heart in horror. 'Oh, goodness, Miss Armstrong. Of course not. I wouldn't dream of it. It's sound and fury, nothing more.' Juliet felt a pang of disappointment. She had been horribly attracted to …
It maintains that this insecurity is the result of trying to be secure, and that, contrariwise, salvation and sanity consist in the most radical recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves. There is, then, the feeling that we live in a time of unusual insecurity. In the past hundred years so many long-established …
Continue reading Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety – Alan W. Watts – Quotes
In lieu of smoky jazz clubs, Parisian garrets and unsuitable boys, Simon took me out for birthday tapas last night and I got a bit more drunk than I meant to. I did achieve the inappropriate skirt and the whisky, though. Sadly, the whisky was just part of a cocktail in a very wanky hipster …
The reason I decided to write about her in À la recherche du temps perdu is because she is the only person I know who really understands time. Old Jiko is supercareful with her time. She does everything really really slowly, even when she’s just sitting on the veranda, looking out at the dragonflies spinning …
Continue reading A Tale for the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki – Quotes
it was easy to agree with the German poet Heinrich Heine, who allegedly said that if a war ever broke out he would head straight for the Netherlands, because 'everything happens fifty years later there'. Initially, I had been under the vague impression that it was one of those eco-friendly countries where environmental protection was …
Continue reading Why the Dutch are Different – Ben Coates – Quotes
Some people acquire the travel bug. Others are born with it. My affliction, if that’s what it is, went into remission for many years following my aborted expedition with Drew. It resurfaced after college with renewed fury. I desperately wanted to see the world, preferably on someone else’s dime. But how? I had no marketable …
Continue reading The Geography of Bliss – Eric Weiner – Quotes
But why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish …
Continue reading The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben – Quotes
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