“When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.”
— Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation (1962)
catherinewillis:
(via ratak-monodosico, blushingsiren) (via crashinglybeautiful)
(via catherinewillis & blushingsiren)
People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience.
— Flannery O’Connor in Mystery and manners: occasional prose (Ed. by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, 1969)
(via wordpainting & junkbondtrader)
