From Feathers to Iron (1935)
Arpilei Tohar (1914), p. 2.
Ch 25
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua
Context: Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America — burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion, he thought.
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
John Banville on the birth of his dark twin, Benjamin Black (2011)
“The Watcher and the Tower
Waiting hour by hour.”
Song lyrics, Crises (1983)
No. 4
On the Interpretation of Nature (1753)
The Wild Swans At Coole http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1712/, st. 1
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
The Shared Patio (2005)
Context: Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.
