“Dark and empty was the place to which I’d come
Cold and silent was the house my name was on
Nine rooms — and a tomb in every one”

—  Cat Stevens

Song lyrics, Numbers (1974)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Dark and empty was the place to which I’d come Cold and silent was the house my name was on Nine rooms — and a tomb i…" by Cat Stevens?
Cat Stevens photo
Cat Stevens 91
British singer-songwriter 1948

Related quotes

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa photo

“A house of which one knew every room wasn't worth living in.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa book The Leopard

Un palazzo del quale si conoscessero tutte le stanze non era degno di essere abitato.
Page 128
Il Gattopardo (1958)

“One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home.”

Pam Brown (1948) Australian poet

“People frequently ask why my canvases are compartmentalized. No one ever asks this about a house. A man with a large family would not choose to live in a one-room house... I am like a man with a large family and must have many rooms. The children of my imagination occupy the various compartments of my painting, each independent and occupying its own place. At the same time they have the proper atmosphere in which to function together, in harmony and as a unified group. One can say that my paintings are like a house, in which each occupant has a room of his own.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Arts and Architecture, vol. 68, no 9, September 1951, p. 21.
1950s

William Saroyan photo

“One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.”

William Saroyan book My Name Is Aram

"The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse".
My Name Is Aram (1940)
Context: One day, back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke me up by tapping on the window of my room.
"Aram," he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out the window.
I couldn't believe what I saw.
It wasn't morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know I wasn't dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.

Fernando Pessoa photo

“The house clock, place certain there at the bottom of things, strikes the half hour dry and null. All is so much, all is so deep, all is so dark and cold!”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 60
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O relógio da casa, lugar certo lá ao fundo das coisas, soa a meia hora seca e nula. Tudo é tanto, tudo é tão fundo, tudo é tão negro e frio!

Lewis Carroll photo

“One winter night, at half past nine,
Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,
I had come home, too late to dine”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Opening lines
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Massimo Introvigne photo

“A world with no place for God is dark, empty without hope.”

Massimo Introvigne (1955) Italian philosopher

"Filming the Age of Kingdom: The End Times and the Movies of The Church of Almighty God" https://bitterwinter.org/end-times-and-the-movies-of-cag/

Sarah McLachlan photo

“In the arms of the angel,
Fly away from here.
From this dark cold hotel room,
And the endlessness you feel.
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie.
You're in the arms of the angel;
May you find some comfort here.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Angel
Song lyrics, Surfacing (1997)

Marianne von Werefkin photo

“I save myself in a church. Dark, empty. Lights flickering before icons. One sings everything that one has sung before in the past. Some black figures - and the heart is heavy. The tears take one's breath away and the past rises up again. Home.... in Peter's office [Marianne's brother, governor of Kovno Province, Lithuania], my entire soul starts to ache for him, for that battle for everything that is sweet and good, which is called Russian life. Empty, empty in the house, no one. Whoever comes - doesn't get his fill of him. And then such a heated rush of love rips out of the [visitor's] heart, begging one's pardon and forgetting the trouble behind, that the whole house swells.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

1906 - 1911
Source: a letter to Alexej von Jawlensky, between December 1909 and Spring 1910; as quoted in 'Ambiguity of Home: Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home, c. 1909', Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909

Related topics