“ … ”

A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

alan watts

I was on a plane, and, as often happens, the woman next to me asked what I did. And it often happens in such circumstances, as we are no longer actually on earth but suspended in the ether above, that a lie takes place. But as I was in no mood for a lie to take place I said, “I do Biblical erasures.” And she said, “Bible erasers! You must sell a great many of them!” I didn’t know if she meant pink rubber erasers with Biblical quotes stamped on them were a commodity appealing to millions, or, since I claimed to support myself in this manner, I would certainly have to sell millions of them. But as I was still in the truth-telling mode I said, “Actually, I haven’t sold a single one.” And as the air of the airplane was suddenly warm and oppressive, I struggled to remove my overcoat, and when she reached out to help me I was overcome by this unexpected and tender gesture of assistance and to my great embarrassment and for reasons having nothing to do with our conversation, I began to cry. And she said, “Don’t worry dear, God works in mysterious ways.” We never spoke again, but a month afterwards I dedicated my new book of poems to her, a perfect stranger whose name I don’t even know, because she had become by then, in my mind, the perfect stranger.

mary ruefle

You find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out in the open and has other people looking at it.

alan alexander milne

I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don’t tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.

tennessee williams

See how three birds in a winter tree make the tree barer. Two fly away, and new rooms open in December.

li-young lee, book of my nights

The Japanese think the month of October is the month-without-gods.

Juan Antonio Gonzalez-Iglesias, translated by Curtis Bauer

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states this has already happened.

douglas adams

A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.

kathryn schulz

Of all the questions you might want to ask about angels, the only one you ever hear is how many can dance on the head of a pin. No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

billy collins, questions about angel

I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, ‘I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say’; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.

mary ruefle