Quotes about the night
page 15

“You can't possibly care about debt relief and the Simpsons. If you listen to Ligeti and James Macmillan then why would you want to know who won the United game last night or which Cabernet Sauvignon to drink with your meal tonight? Get back into your box.
Something else missing from the Times of 1968 was anything to do with the home or emotional life. There is nothing about marriage, divorce, children, schools, au pairs, depression, drinking, health, drugs, teenagers, affairs, fashion, sex, successful relationships, failing relationships, interior decor, cancer, infertility, faith, grandparents - or any of the other things that make up the texture of our non-working lives.”

Alan Rusbridger (1953) British newspaper editor

Rusbridger (2000) " Versions of seriousness http://www.theguardian.com/dumb/story/0,7369,391891,00.html", The Guardian. 4 November 2000: Cited in: Raymond Boyle (2006) Sports Journalism: Context and Issues. p. 11 According to Boyle 2006 Rusbridger argued that "changes in the broadsheet press simply reflects wider cultural shift in taste and the breaking down of areas of supposedly high and low culture." 2000s

Life, Marriage, Children, Health

“I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (September 11, 1888)
Letters

Law, Feeling, Confidence, Literature

“And now I cry in the middle of the night for the same damn thing.”

Kelly Clarkson (1982) American singer-songwriter, actress

Because Of You
Lyrics, Breakaway (2004)

Cry

“You walk down the street at night. It's raining out. The only sound is that of your own feet. There are city sounds too, but these you don't hear because at the end of the street is the woman you've been waiting for for seven long years and each muffled tread of your footsteps takes you closer and closer and the sound of them marks off seconds and days and months of waiting.
Then, suddenly, you're there, outside a dark-faced building, a brownstone anachronism that stares back dully with the defiant expression of the moronic and you have an impending sense of being challenged.”

Mickey Spillane book The Snake

The Snake (1964)

Sense, Waiting

“Or take the case of Suhabhatta, the chief minister of Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (1389-1413 AD). Suhabhatta who had renounced his ancestral faith for Islam is known as Suha in the Rajataringini of Jonaraja. This historian of Kashmir records: “Instructed by mlechhas, (Suha) instigated the king to break down the images of Gods. The king forgot his kingly duties and took a delight day and night in breaking images… He broke the images of Martanda, Vishaya, Isana, Chakravarati and Tripuresvara… There was no city, no town, no village, no wood where Suha and the Turushka left the temples of Gods unbroken.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Jonraja, quoted in Sita Ram Goel: The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India.

God, Faith

“Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Tear, Suffering

“I had a truly horrible dream last night … [Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mike Tyson and I] were on our way to a TV studio for a debate about his long-time working friendship with the powerful Bush family from Texas and how it might affect the next Bush presidency when The Terminator seizes power in Sacramento and tries to hand over the state's 54 electoral votes by election day in 2004. That is the basic plan behind Schwarzenegger running. He doesn't want to be Governor, he just wants the electoral votes to go to Bush this time.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"Nightmare in La-La-Land" (17 August 2003)
2000s

Friendship, Family, Dreams, Way

“The moon was still high. The sky’s transformations—the metamorphoses of its multitudinous vaults in ever more masterfully described configurations—were unending. Like a silver astrolabe, the sky had opened up that night its bewitching internal mechanism, exhibiting in endless cycles the gilded mathematics of its cogs and wheels.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Cinnamon Shops” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/shops/shops.htm His father, The heavens

Mathematics

“Everyone in the family wears fur except me. … Kim wore fur last night. I told her you cannot wear fur. It's embarrassing.”

Khloé Kardashian (1984) American television personality

"Khloe Kardashian Butts In to Animal Rights" https://web.archive.org/web/20081214052242/http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b72579_khloe_kardashian_butts_in_animal_rights.html, E! Online (10 December 2008).

Family

“The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

About the Man Booker Prize
John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

Hate, People, Nature, Thinking

“I had the benefit of background and infrastructure, success would have come rather easily and my independent contribution would not have been easily measurable. Here there was so much to be done - how could I not try? I had a trained butler. Mumbai was close. The Mathais were there but I would stay at the Taj for Rs 50 per night. I could afford it because in Anand I had no expenses at all. **When asked why with aristocratic background how reconciled to stay in a garage.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

In p. 143.
Quote, Thought Leaders

Success, Training

“3082. To what Purpose shouldest thou seek great Things for thyself in the World? or having obtained them, prize them at any considerable Rate? or value thyself upon them? seeing thou knowest not, but this Night thy Soul may be required of thee, when thou shalt be divested of them all. 'Twould be as vain and unreasonable, as for a Traveler, that is to stay at his Inn but for a night, to take great Thought and Pains about furnishing and adorning his Chamber, which the next Morning he must leave to the next Comer.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Pain, World, Travel, Soul

“One of the most terrible things about the English education System in Ireland is its ruthlessness…it is cold and mechanical, like the ruthlessness of an immensely powerful engine. A machine vast, complicated… It grinds night and day; it obeys immutable and predetermined laws; it is as devoid of understanding, of sympathy, of imagination, as is any other piece of machinery that performs an appointed task. Into it is fed all raw human material in Ireland; it seizes upon it inexorably and rends and compresses and remoulds…”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

The Cause Of Ireland, Liz Curtis, Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast 1994, pg 190.This quote was taken from the original, in Padraig Pearse’s book The Murder Machine.

Education, Law, Imagination, Understanding

“All the time I felt I was being watched, that I was not alone, that I was putting on an act for the benefit of someone, that this action could be done only if it was spontaneous, pure – and moral. Because more and more it crept through my mind with the chill spring night that I was trying to commit not a moral action, but a fundamentally aesthetic one; to do something that would end my life sensationally, significantly, consistently. It was a Mercutio death I was looking for, not a real one. A death to be remembered, not the true death of a true suicide, the death obliterate.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Life, Death, Spring, Suicide

“You wake up and you're still a little drunk and you can't believe that hot girl from last night actually has a beard and a penis.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Cosmopolitan, January 1999, on embarrassing dates.

Girl

“Eventually there was a split between my parents about me. My mother obviously knew what was going on with me and the girls my friends lined up. She never came out and said anything directly, but she let me know she was concerned. Things were different between me and my father. He assumed that when I was eighteen, I would just go into the Army and they would straighten me out. He accepted some of the things my mother condemned. He felt it was perfectly all right to make out with all the girls I could. In fact, he was proud I was dating the fast girls. He bragged about them to his friends. 'Jesus Christ, you should see some of the women my son's coming up with'. He was showing off, of course. But still, our whole relationship had changed because I'd established myself by winning a few trophies and now had some girls. He was particularly excited about the girls. And he liked the idea that I didn't get involved. 'That's right, Arnold', he'd say, as though he'd had endless experience, 'never be fooled by them'. That continued to be an avenue of communication between us for a couple of years. In fact, the few nights I took girls home when I was on leave from the Army, my father was always very pleasant and would bring out a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/067122879X (1977), New York: Simon & Schuster. 1970s, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (1977)

Women, Fools, Home, Girl

“[Engineering] is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.

The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned. That is the phantasmagoria that haunts his nights and dogs his days. He comes from the job at the end of the day resolved to calculate it again. He wakes in the night in a cold sweat and puts something on paper that looks silly in the morning. All day he shivers at the thought of the bugs which will inevitably appear to jolt its smooth consummation.

On the other hand, unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope. No doubt as years go by people forget which engineer did it, even if they ever knew. Or some politician puts his name on it. Or they credit it to some promoter who used other people’s money with which to finance it. But the engineer himself looks back at the unending stream of goodness which flows from his successes with satisfactions that few professions may know. And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolades he wants.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Excerpted from Chapter 11 "The Profession of Engineering"
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874-1929 (1951)

Life, Men, Money, People

“On Tuesday the freighter steamed through the Straits of Gibraltar and for five days plowed eastward through the Mediterranean, past islands and peninsulas rich in history, so that on Saturday night the steward advised Dr. Cullinane, "If you wish an early sight of the Holy Land you must be up at dawn."”

James A. Michener book The Source

The Source (1965) First lines

History, Past

“The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Sleep, Sun, Sea

“Will-power, give me back some to survive,
One more hour and I'm coming alive…
I can see the light!
And there's blue sky breaking
Through the edge of the night…
I can see the light!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Earth Moving (1989)

Light

“The tasks are done and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing that night has shed.”

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (1835–1905) writer

New Every Morning, (date of publication uncertain).

Error, Tear

“Be, as you have been, my happiness;
Let me sleep beside you, each night, like a spoon.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Woman," lines 170-171
The Lost World (1965)

Sleep, Happiness

“His wastefulness showed most of all in the architectural projects. He built a palace, stretching from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which he called…"The Golden House". The following details will give some notion of its size and magnificence. The entrance-hall was large enough to contain a huge statue of himself, 120 feet high…Parts of the house were overlaid with gold and studded with precious stones and mother-of pearl. All the dining-rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory, the panels of which could slide back and let a rain of flowers, or of perfume from hidden sprinklers, shower upon his guests. The main dining-room was circular, and its roof revolved, day and night, in time with the sky. Sea water, or sulphur water, was always on tap in the baths. When the palace had been decorated throughout in this lavish style, Nero dedicated it, and condescended to remark: "Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being!"”
Non in alia re tamen damnosior quam in aedificando domum a Palatio Esquilias usque fecit, quam…Auream nominavit. De cuius spatio atque cultu suffecerit haec rettulisse. Vestibulum eius fuit, in quo colossus CXX pedum staret ipsius effigie…In ceteris partibus cuncta auro lita, distincta gemmis unionumque conchis erant; cenationes laqueatae tabulis eburneis versatilibus, ut flores, fistulatis, ut unguenta desuper spargerentur; praecipua cenationum rotunda, quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur; balineae marinis et albulis fluentes aquis. Eius modi domum cum absolutam dedicaret, hactenus comprobavit, ut se diceret quasi hominem tandem habitare coepisse.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Nero, Ch. 31

Flowers, Water, Time, Parting

“Immeasurable pain!
My dreaming soul last night was king again.
As in past days
I wandered through the Palace of Delight,
And in my dream
Down grassy garden-ways
Glided my chariot, smoother than a summer stream;
There was moonlight,
The trees were blossoming,
And a faint wind softened the air of night,
For it was spring.”

Li Yu (Southern Tang) (937–978) ruler of the Southern Tang Kingdom in ancient China

《望江南》 ("Immeasurable Pain"), as translated by Arthur Waley in The Temple (1923), p. 144

Pain, Dreams, Way, Soul

“The acts of Him Whom God shall make manifest are like unto the sun, while the works of men, provided they conform to the good-pleasure of God, resemble the stars or the moon… Thus, should the followers of the Bayán observe the precepts of Him Whom God shall make manifest at the time of His appearance, and regard themselves and their own works as stars exposed to the light of the sun, then they will have gathered the fruits of their existence; otherwise the title of ‘starship’ will not apply to them. Rather it will apply to such as truly believe in Him, to those who pale into insignificance in the day-time and gleam forth with light in the night season.
Such indeed is the fruit of this precept, should anyone observe it on the Day of Resurrection. This is the essence of all learning and of all righteous deeds, should anyone but attain unto it. Had the peoples of the world fixed their gaze upon this principle, no Exponent of divine Revelation would ever have, at the inception of any Dispensation, regarded them as things of naught. However, the fact is that during the night season everyone perceiveth the light which he himself, according to his own capacity, giveth out, oblivious that at the break of day this light shall fade away and be reduced to utter nothingness before the dazzling splendour of the sun.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

VIII, 1
The Persian Bayán

Men, God, People, Pleasure

“My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in thy hall, unstrung!
Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid.
Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before. Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass, which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

War, Lie, Peace, Art

“If thou intend to do any good; tarry not till to-morrow! for thou knowest not what may chance thee this night.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

Chance

“Many nights I stood on the bridge — and in the middle alone — lost — a defenseless prey to the surrounding swarming darkness — crushed by the mountainous black impenetrability of the skyscrapers — here and there lights resembling suspended falls of astral bodies or fantastic splendors of remote rites — shaken by the underground tumult of the trains in perpetual motion, like blood in the arteries—at times, ringing as alarm in a tempest, the shrill sulphurous voice of the trolley wires — now and then strange moanings of appeal from tugboats, guessed more than seen, through the infernal recesses below — I felt deeply moved, as if on the threshold of a new religion or in the presence of a new DIVINITY.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Source: "The Brooklyn Bridge (A page of my life)," 1929, p. 88; Cited in: Beth Venn, Adam D. Weinberg. Frames of Reference: Looking at American Art, 1900-1950 : Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art. University of California Press, 1999. p. 123

Religion, Mountain, Light, Time

“I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green.' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one's strength, and keep one at full collar.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to William Purton (6 February 1836), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 380
1830s

Horse, Summer, Parting, Painting

“In the evening I study a fair.... if you could see the pomp and luxury of the merry-go-round and the stands and booths. Everything is decorated in Baroque-style, all gold and silver; there are mirrors, fabrics, and electric lightning. By night the whole thing is fantastic and rowdy. First of all I shall make a small picture and some drawings for illustrations.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

quote c. 1900, in: Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1951), ed. Fagiolo dell'Arco, exh. catalogue, Galleria Nationale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, 1971 Balla studied a fair for his later painting ' Luna park in Paris https://www.wikiart.org/en/giacomo-balla/luna-park-par-s-1900,' he painted in 1900

Study, Drawing

“While the film Life of Christ was rolling past before my eyes I was mentally visualizing the gods, Shri Krishna, Shri Ramachandra their Gokul and Ayodhya.. I was gripped by a strange spell. I bought another ticket and saw the film again. This time I felt my imagination taking shape in the screen. Could this really happen? Could we the sons of India, ever be able to see Indian images on the screen. The whole night passed in this mental agony.”

Dadasaheb Phalke (1870–1944) Indian producer-director-screenwriter

After watching the film The Life of Christ in 1910 quoted in *[Ganti, Tejaswini, Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema, http://books.google.com/books?id=2GAdCp1VAf0C&pg=PA8, 5 March 2013, Routledge, 978-1-136-84929-9, 92]
Quote

Life, God, Imagination, Time

“I was hanging out the other night with a bunch of friends I've known forever. They were saying, "Look at you. You've grown into a swan." I looked at them and said, "My awkward phase lasted about three years longer than all of yours combined." I related to the physical and emotional awkwardness Mia goes through. She has incredibly low self-esteem. A lot of my life was spent having the same thing, but I'm getting over that now.”

Anne Hathaway (1982) American actress

As quoted in "Anne Hathaway : Royal Role" by Jeffrey Epstein at E! Online (20 July 2001)

Life

“Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18248547/site/newsweek/
Gun Control

Law, Business

“To say that the law of force is abandoned because force is regular, unopposed, and beneficially exercised, is to say that day and night are now such well-established institutions that the sun and moon are mere superfluities.”

James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894) Indian judge

Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873-1874), Ch. 5

Law, Exercises, Sun

“One more night, God I've had to fight
To keep my line of sight on what's real
One more day I fear I've lost my way
I don't know how to say what I feel.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

One More Day, One More Night
Lyrics, Echo (1999)

God, Fear, Way, Feeling

“I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?”

Devin Townsend (1972) Canadian musician

because we don't feel fulfilled. Far Beyond Metal: Metal Hammer Interviews Devin http://www.farbeyondmetal.com/index.php?page_id=1120

Life, People, Feeling, Understanding

“Nawf bin Fizala Bakali, the famous scholar of the early Islamic days says that one night he was with Imam Ali. In the middle of the night, Imam Ali got up from his bed, looked for sometime at the stars and inquired of Nawf whether he was awake. Nawf said: "I got from my bed replying, "Yes, Amirul Mo'minin (Commander of the Faithful)! I am awake."”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Faith, Star

“Too bad, I'm no poet,
I happen to know it, But anyway
Here's a roundelay
I wrote last night about you…”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Ev'rything I Love" (1941)
Let's Face It (1941)

“My father rarely spoke of life before [he left Cuba]. About prison, he jsut said, "That man is a genius at PR." Castro would come to the jail in the middle of the night and ask the prisoners, "What are you doing here? Don't you see we're trying to do the right thing?" The reason I'm not more political is because I have music. And from a young age, I needed it. After prison, my father came to America, joined the Army, fought in Vietnam -- and was exposed to Agent Orange. He died a slow, horrible death. Music was my escape.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

www.huffingtonpost.com (September 7, 2007)
2007, 2008

Life, Death, Age, Music

“The "wise men " were journeying to the manger — we to the throne. They to see a babe — we to look upon the King in His beauty. They to kneel and worship — we to sit with Him on His throne. That trembling star shone for them through the darkness of the night, lighting their way — Jesus is always with us, our star of hope; and the pathway is never dark where He leads; for He giveth "songs in the night."”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 54.

Men, Beauty, Hope, Way

“It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 6 (p. 86)

“She turned out to be the wife of a man who was then the prime minister of a major country. I'd heard stories about this lady, but I never thought much of them until that night. We met at the house of the friend who'd phoned me. After we'd all chatted for a while in the living room, the four of us who already knew each other drifted out to the kitchen, leaving Ben and Madame X in the living room to get better acquainted. Which they did. In fact, when we drifted back in, about ten minutes later, she and Ben were involved in an incredibly torrid scene on the couch. I remember standing there and thinking to myself, "Well, Donald, you're not in Queens anymore."”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump: Surviving at the Top (1990), p. 52
1990s

Thinking, Housing, Country

“When I was in hospital I found I could hardly read or writ. In these circumstances I began to write poems. I found that poetry was the only kind of writing in which I could express my thoughts. One night I dreamed I was lying on the bank of a canal, under machine gun fire. The next morning I wrote it out, Carentan O Caretan, and as I wrote I realized it was not a dream, but the memory of my first time under fire”

Louis Simpson (1923–2012) Jamaican poet

The Poetry of War 1939-45 ed. Ian Hamilton, London 1965
Carentan O Carentan, 1948

Dreams, Lying, Memory, Time

“There was a jolly miller once,
Lived on the river Dee;
He worked and sung from morn till night:
No lark more blithe than he.”

Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733–1812) Irish playwright and librettist

Love in a Village (1762), Act i, scene 2.

“My songs were once of the sunrise:
They shouted it over the bar;
First-footing the dawns, they flourished,
And flamed with the morning star.

My songs are now of the sunset:
Their brows are touched with light,
But their feet are lost in the shadows
And wet with the dews of night.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

"Envoy"
Poems (1898)

Star, Light

“All night I lay awake beside you,
Leaning on my elbow, watching your
Sleeping face, that face whose purity
Never ceases to astonish me.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

In Defense of the Earth (1956), She Is Away

Sleep

“Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move-and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman book The Yellow Wall Paper

The Yellow Wallpaper (1891)

Change

“Every day, thought Stone, is a revelation. At night it seems that you will never see it again, that it has been lost in the darkness. But with the sun, you hold your breath and look, and there it is. Just as it was; as you could never quite remember it.”

Christopher Wood (writer) (1935–2015) English writer

Wood, Christopher. "Terrible Hard", Says Alice. London: Constable. 1970. (chapter 8)

Sun

“Right here you made an angel of yourself,
free-falling backwards into last night's snow,
indenting a straight, neat, crucified shape,
then flapping your arms, one stroke, a great bird,
to leave the impression of wings. It worked.”

Simon Armitage (1963) Poet, playwright, novelist

'A Glory', from Cloudcuckooland.

Angels, Bird

“Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Memories of President Lincoln, 14
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Death, World

“Tender is the night
For a broken heart
Who will dry your eyes
When it falls apart”

Victoria Legrand (1981) singer

Space Song, Depression Cherry (August 28, 2015).

Heart

“The other night at a neighborhood restaurant the waiter, after mentioning he had read my books, said about himself, “I’m white, I’m nothing.” But that was what I wanted, you see, growing up in America—the freedom of being nothing, the confidence of it, the arrogance. And I achieved it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Books, Confidence, Freedom, Reading

“We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (6 June 1879)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Travel, Personality

“In the second year of my residence in Gottingen, I entered my name for a course of lectures on practical physics, against the advice of all my friends, but I have never regretted so doing, as there never has been, and probably never will be, a greater man at the university than Doctor Schroder, physician to the king, who gave, at that period, his celebrated lectures on practical physics. Schroder himself was astonished at the step I had taken; but when he perceived that I fully understood him, I became one of his favourite pupils; nor had I the advantage alone of receiving private lessons gratis, but he took me with him in most of his professional visits, where I had all the advantages of his great practice. Thus I caught a putrid fever which was then very prevalent; Schroeder attended me day and night, and giving up all hopes of my recovery, he observed to one of his friends, not thinking that I understood what he said, "The expansion of the sinews increases." "Then," answered I, in a quiet manner, "I shall die in four days, according to such and such a rule of Hippocrates: pray, prepare my father to receive the news of my death." However, immediately after, a sudden turn in the disorder taking place, I soon recovered; not so my memory, which I lost for a time, so that I had forgotten the names of my best friends; my nerves were so completely shaken, that I had no wish to recover. After my recovery, Professor Schroeder being himself attacked with the same fever, requested of his wife that no other physician than myself should attend him; but when he became light-headed, she called in all the physicians of Gottingen, and these gentlemen not agreeing in opinion respecting the treatment of the patient, this great and learned man fell a victim to ignorance and jealousy, April 21, 1772. I cannot think of this celebrated and good man without shedding tears of regret and gratitude.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Death, Jealousy, Hope, Thinking

“Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight!
Make me a child again, just for to-night!”

Elizabeth Chase Allen (1832–1911) American author, journalist, poet

Rock me to sleep, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Time

“One thing we specifically discussed that night was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti- Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street. By launching Breitbart Jerusalem, the journey comes full circle and a promise between two friends is fulfilled. And in a very real sense, Breitbart News Network returns to its roots.”

Larry Solov (1968) American attorney and media executive

Breitbart News Network: Born In The USA, Conceived In Israel http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/11/17/breitbart-news-network-born-in-the-usa-conceived-in-israel/ (November 17, 2015)

Sense, Freedom

“… even scarier is why people have stopped thinking global warming is real. One major reason, pollsters say, is, "we had a very cold, snowy winter". Which is like saying the sun might not be real because last night it got dark.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Episode 187, "New Rules" segment http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/index.html#/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/187-episode/article/new-rules.html, June 4, 2010 Real Time with Bill Maher

People, Thinking, Winter, Sun

“Harry Dresden: Hers was a beauty so pure that it was nearly painful to behold--Athena heading out on a Friday night.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 7

Pain, Beauty

“It was Italian playwright and screenwriter Ennio Flaiano who first spoke to Fellini of Fernando Pessoa during their collaboration on I Vitelloni (1953). Fellini claimed, however, that it was not until he lunched with Anthony Burgess in the mid 1970s (when the British writer owned a country house in Bracciano north of Rome) that he began reading the Portuguese poet in earnest. This is not to suggest that Pessoa influenced Fellini in any direct way but simply to note a genial coincidence embedded within two autobiographical masterpieces. The first quotation is from Pessoa’s O Livro do desassossego: ‘These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say.’ The second is from Fellini’s Otto e mezzo (1963) during the crucial night scene at the base of the scaffolding when Guido confesses to Rosella, “I have really nothing to say in my film. But I want to say it anyway.” Suddenly, the disparate obsessions of these two great Mediterranean minds seem to fold into one another, if only for an instant, like the sounds of vibrating wires touched simultaneously. Whatever the ultimate significance may be, it amuses me to think that textual coincidences of this nature are proof of the brotherhood of artists.”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

On Fellini and Fernando Pessoa
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Way, Nature, Thinking, Reading

“We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night tonight
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Star-Splitter
1920s

Way

“They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire
The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,
Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long,
And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

God, Age, Smile, Star

“I like to hunt. We went to a nuclear power and hunted in the woods next to it. I got a 34-point rabbit in there. We always go at night. It's easier. All the critters glow in the dark out there.”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

“Those perilous climbings [with her sister Claudia, in the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916] were frightening, but it was wonderful to me and not like anything I had known before. The fright of the day was still with me in the night and I would often dream that the foot of my bed rose straight up into the air — then just as it was to fall I would wake up. Many drawings came from days like that, and later some oil paintings.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

About climbing the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Dreams, Sister, Drawing, Painting

“It's not my dreams that get me in trouble, it's the things my wife dreams I did… My wife punched me in the middle of the night; I woke up, I was like "Oww! What was that for?" She said "I dreamt you were making out with Faith Hill." I said "I wasn't dreaming anything! Send her over to my dream, we'll both be happy."”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Have Your Loved Ones Spayed and Neutered (2004)

Faith, Dreams, Happiness

“Thus he occupied me all that night, and on the morn till it was about prime day. And anon they were all gone, and all passed; and they left nothing but stench, and that lasted still awhile; and I scorned him.
And thus was I delivered from him by the virtue of Christ’s Passion: for therewith is the Fiend overcome, as our Lord Jesus Christ said afore.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 69

Passion, Christ

“At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Statement on surrendering tribal lands to Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington Territory (1855)

Love, Beauty, Thinking

“Love does not always choose the same dwelling place, it makes many exploits in men here below; It has its night, its day, and its many levels: only the one who has overall happiness is content. It moves, it suffers in God, its first cause and the unique happiness of the celestial Spirits; It is there that it is always equally enraptured, by the Seraphic love which is above all things.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From The Holy Sepulchre Canticle

Love, Men, God, Suffering

“For the Second Amendment to do its job, the other side must become much better informed. I watched an action-adventure program last night that asserted that the famous AK-47 — the original peoples' rifle (and Authority's greatest mistake) — is rare in this country, and that the only ones here were originally smuggled in from the Middle East, or possibly from South America. The idiots who wrote this mess seemed unaware that after legal imports — mostly from China — were illegally cut off by executive order, they began to be manufactured here.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Tastes Like Chicken".

People, Country

“Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—
In Twilight-land—in No-man’s land—
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.

“And who are you?” cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
“I know not,” said the second Shape,
“I only died last night.””

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American poet, novelist, editor

Identity; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Light

““We’re going to have a séance. Oren, open the whisky, if you would, and pour each of us a full glass.”
“First sensible remark all night,” said Charlotte.”

Tim Powers book Three Days to Never

Source: Three Days to Never (2006), Chapter 24 (p. 339)

“Oh! how many actions, how many fabulous exploits
Remain without glory in the midst of the night.”

Pierre Corneille book Le Cid

Ô combien d’actions, combien d’exploits célèbres
Sont demeurés sans gloire au milieu des ténèbres.
Don Rodrigue, act IV, scene iii.
Le Cid (1636)

“All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river,
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead—
The picket ’s off duty forever.”

Ethel Lynn Beers (1827–1879) American writer

"All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight" (first published in Harper's Weekly on November 30, 1861 under the title The Picket Guard).

Dead

“If no attempt is made to control excessive heat loss through glass… a solar house may require as much as 20 percent more fuel than an orthodox house during December and January… Wendell Thomas recognized and solved this problem… by burying the house in the ground, except for the south and east window areas. …at night… windows are covered with from inside by insulation boards and drapes…”

Ken Kern American writer

The Owner Built Home: A How-to-do-it Book (1972)

Problem, Loss, Housing

“They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Alice's Restaurant Massacree

“Bend low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest,
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.”

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908) American poet, story-writer and critic

To-night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Soul

“When you're down and troubled
And you need some loving care
And nothing, nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest nights.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

You've Got a Friend · performance with James Taylor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mNDS5rIRU · performance by James Taylor (1971) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7RPCFfudmU · performance with Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan & Shania Twain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJPgxEi2BM8 · Boston Strong performance with James Taylor (30 May 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZI3kLrHK80 Song lyrics, Tapestry (1971)

Love, Thinking

“Were I laid on Greenland’s Coast,
And in my Arms embrac’d my Lass;
Warm amidst eternal Frost,
Too soon the Half Year’s Night would pass.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Act I, sc. xxxiii, air 16
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“This very night I am going to leave off Tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Letter to Thomas Manning (December 26, 1815)

World

“Listen to satsang. It is a very good thing. God created day and night. After that He created excellent things to eat, and then he landed us in this world. Isn't this human body beautiful? There is a nose to breathe with. Tell me, could we have survived without it? See what a good job of seeing these eyes do. Look how beautiful are the hands and the feet. If no seva is done, then these hands are of no use. These two ears have been given, if we don’t listen to satsang with them, aren’t they useless? If you do not go to satsang walking with these feet, they are also worthless. God has created all the parts of this body quite well, but if we don't use them properly, it is our fault, not the Creator's. The river flowing over there is the Ganga, but it is not flowing for its own use. It is we who drink its water, wash our clothes in it, and irrigate our fields with it. By bathing in it only the dirt of this body is washed, but by bathing in the Ganga of satsang, all the evils are removed. What I am telling you is also written in the Gita. But Gita cannot make you understand. Only the satguru can make you understand the satnam (true name), so do practice Knowledge. Look at Lord Shiva sitting with eyes closed [pointing towards a fountain with a statue of Shiva]. He always stays in the contemplation of Guru Maharaj. Whenever I see him he doesn’t do any other work. I don’t know whether he doesn’t like doing any other work or what. Therefore, you too should also practice Knowledge like this.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Prem Nagar, Hardwar August 21,1962 (translated from Hindi). Birthday Celebrations, as published in "Hansadesh" magazine, Issue 1, Mahesh Kare, January 1963. (First published address.)
1960s

God, World, Beauty, Drink

“If you hear something late at night,
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight,
Just don't ask me what it was.”

Suzanne Vega (1959) American singer

Luka
Solitude Standing (1987)

Fight

“Dark and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their well-earned repose. The water's own noises, too, were more apparent than by day, its gurglings and 'cloops' more unexpected and near at hand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from an actual articulate voice.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7, "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn"

Business, Water

“The sky was horribly dark, but one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently. That was because that star had given me an idea: I decided to kill myself that night.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I

Star, Idea

“And then the lute, the lattice, and the girl,
The white rose, and the melancholy song —
Oh, Night, thy reign is over lovely things!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Love, Girl

“Beside the garden walls,
We walk in haunts of ancient peace.
At night we rest and go to sleep
In haunts of ancient peace.
The love and light we seek,
The words we do not need to speak,
Here in this wondrous way we keep
These haunts of ancient peace.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Haunts Of Ancient Peace
Song lyrics, Common One (1980)

Love, Peace, Way, Sleep

“For people like us it is necessary to be a bit stronger, more self-critical, more observant than the usual run. Whether we happen to come already enhanced with these qualities, as some have claimed, or whether our situation invests them in us, we have traditionally - and we do have a long and proud tradition - been a little finer, a little firmer, more sensitive and flexible than others… There will be times when only your own spine can support you, moments when only your own wit can inspire you, days when nothing but exacting self-control can raise you from bed, nights when nothing but your word can impel you into society. But of all these disciplines, there is nothing you must hold to more sternly than to be kind and sympathetic. The easiest armor to put on is always cruelty. That armor will, indeed, see you through everything. Vicious condescension toward those without your strength can make you feel momentarily superior. But that easy armor must be forgone. Don't ever curdle that creamy brow with lines of easy disdain, or curl those lips with a popular sneer. Of all the models available, the one of gentleman in our late war is most succinct: Face what you have to face with humor, dignity, and style; protect yourself with knightly grace; have contempt for your own weakness and never encourage it in others; but never, Ralph, never for an instant permit yourself to feel anything other than pity and deepest sympathy for unfortunate comrades who have, after all, fallen in the same battle.”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

One of Those People
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

War, People, Feeling, Support

“Life is a jest;
Take the delight of it.
Laughter is best;
Sing through the night of it.
Swiftly the tear
And the hurt and the ache of it
Find us down here;
Life must be what we make of it.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Life, stanza 1, All That Matters, p. 80 (1922).

Life, Tear, Laughter, Singing

“Young, blond fags with powder-blue eyes and soft shoes skipped along arm-in-arm. Chinese girls with long hair and black stockings carried metal pots into Ernie’s Delicatessen for bean cake, barbequed duck, Chinese curds and steamed rice. Art students from the Art Institute, draftsmen from Heald’s College and law students from S. F. Law School walked by in carefree abandon, none of them in pain, all with beautiful girls in red slippers. They had leather, beads and books and pipes and scabs of hair on their interesting faces. Polk Street at night was always Christmas Eve for lonely men such as myself.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 51.

Men, Pain, Books, School

“Oh my love, oh my love, I've cried for you so much,
Lonely nights without sleeping, while I longed for your touch.
Now your lips can't evade the heartache I've known,
Come with me to a world of our own.”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song A World of Our Own.

Love, World, Sleep

“Twas the night before Christmas, the office was closed,
The transom was shut, the staff home in repose;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
But St. Nicholas won’t be coming because this is a Designated National Security Site within the meaning of Para 4.12 of Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (Amended) and unauthorised intrusion on such a site is an arrestable offense …”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014)

Secret, Home, Christmas

“There is an outmoded Burmese proverb still recited by men who wish to deny that women too can play a part in bringing necessary change and progress to their society: "The dawn rises only when the rooster crows." But Burmese people today are well aware of the scientific reasons behind the rising of dawn and the falling of dusk. And the intelligent rooster surely realizes that it is because dawn comes that it crows and not the other way round. It crows to welcome the light that has come to relieve the darkness of night. It is not the prerogative of men alone to bring light to this world: women with their capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice, their courage and perseverance, have done much to dissipate the darkness of intolerance and hate, suffering and despair.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Women, Men, Hate, People

“In the first televised presidential debate, Nixon thought he was upholding some puritan gravitas by refusing makeup; by choosing the citizen’s black suit; choosing the poor man’s version of natural aristocracy. Nixon was easily the more able in his grasp of history and the workings of government. John F. Kennedy, gold-dusted and ghostwritten, appeared completely natural. Nixon perspired. In an instant, I saw what many other Americans saw that night: Harvard College will always beat Whittier College in America. The game is fixed and there is nothing to be done about it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

History, Game, Nature, Appearance

“I didn't speak any English when I arrived here [but] I was very good at drinking. [It was my] third day in the U. S., so I talked to the other students, 'Let's have a drink.' They said, 'How can you get the drinks? We are not allowed?' And I said, 'I can buy it in Chinatown.' So I bought it and we drank in my room and we get crazy all night long and they don't have enough tolerance for that, so they all starting throwing up. Suddenly there came four or five ambulances and they kept asking, 'Hey, why, did you do that?”

Psy (1977) South Korean singer

My English was really horrible, so the only words I had were, 'Not me!
Ibid.

Drink

“A lot of [my] songs have various strange oddities in them - usually this is the result of late-night dementia.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Static Line interview, 1998

“I listened to a panel of judges and I'll comment on that — I will not comment on the statements made by, um, certainly one judge — but I have to be honest that if these judges wanted to, in my opinion, help the court, in terms of respect for the court, they'd do what they should be doing. I mean it's so sad, they should be, you know, when you read something so simple, and so beautifully written, and so perfectly written — other than the one statement, of course, having to do with "he" or "she" — but when you read something so perfectly written, and so clear to anybody, and then you have lawyers and you watched, I watched last night in amazement, and I heard things that I couldn't believe, things that really had nothing to do with what I just read, and I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased, and we haven't had a decision yet, but courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, February

Sadness, Justice, Decision, Reading

“I was imprisoned in Concepción for a few days and then realeased. They didn't torture me, as I had feared; they didn't even rob me. But they didn't give me anything to eat either, or any kind of covering for the night, so I had to rely on the goodwill of other prisoners, who shared their food with me. In the small hours I could hear them torturing others; I couldn't sleep and there was nothing to read except a magazine in English that someone had left behind. The only interesting article in it was about a house that had once belonged to Dylan Thomas. … I got out of that hole thanks to a pair of detectives who had been at high school with me in Los Ángeles…”

Roberto Bolaño book Last Evenings on Earth

His experience of being imprisoned during the regime of Augusto Pinochet, as depicted in "Dance Card", p. 215
Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Fear, School, Food, Sleep

“Money spent on vegetative patients is money not spent on preventive care, such as flu shots and mammograms. Each night in an ICU bed for such patients is a night that another patient with a genuine prognosis for recovery is denied such high-end care. Every dollar exhausted on patients who will never wake up again is a dollar not devoted to finding a cure for cancer.”

Jacob M. Appel (1973) American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic

"Rational Rationing vs. Irrational Rationing" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/rational-rationing-vs-irr_b_622057.html, The Huffington Post (2010-06-23)

Money

“I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line… called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Books, Color, Way, History