Epigraph, Ch. 2 : Twenty Carats Fine.
Shadows of Shasta (1881)
Context: A thousand miles of mighty wood
Where thunder-storms stride fire-shod;
A thousand flowers every rod,
A stately tree on every rood;
Ten thousand leaves on every tree,
And each a miracle to me;
And yet there be men who question God!
“What miracle is this? This giant tree.
It stands ten thousand feet high
But doesn't reach the ground. Still it stands.
Its roots must hold the sky.”
Source: House of Leaves
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Mark Z. Danielewski 47
Novelist 1965Related quotes
“Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?”
"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" (1912), concluding lines
“Each person must stand on his own feet.”
Source: Demian (1919), p. 147
Context: Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of "permitted" and "forbidden." You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered "forbidden." The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. Each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden — forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.
“either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.”
Source: Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
“Genius may stand on the shoulders of giants, but it stands alone.”
The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
May 30, 1940 diary entry, quoted in "The Struggle for Europe" - Page 20 - by Chester Wilmot - History - 1972.
Sourced Encyclopedia of the Third Reich Louis L. Snyder
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”