Brent Hayward > Quotes

“These mod cons, despite the brief excitement they generated, were basically chutes leading down to clay pipes, which in turn acted as simple conduits to the river, depositing the waste of the rich next to the waste of the poor, where the distinction was lost on the kholics, who attempted, each day, to clean it up.”
― Brent Hayward, The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter

“Lunacy attracting lunacy. Then, of course, they encourage each other, I suppose, validate each other.”
― Brent Hayward, The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter

“... he understood how little time comprised a life, and how tenacious and wondrous and frustrating the interim between oblivions could be.”
― Brent Hayward, Head Full of Mountains

“Perhaps not exactly a life wasted, but an overly courteous and restrained one, obedient, a life of service. Undermined, mostly, by a bitterness that had flowed, until today, deep under his proper-yet-seething skin.”
― Brent Hayward, Filaria

“That's what life was like. Implications and half-complete expressions, undefined expectations, ever unsure what exactly was needed, or what, in fact, was happening.”
― Brent Hayward, Head Full of Mountains

“Components of his experiences seemed to break down, sorting into hard facts, like a series of crystals, as if they could be arranged, made sense of, as if they could be held, easy to view, hold, and look at from different angles.”
― Brent Hayward, Filaria

“What I'm trying to say is that there's more to a story than events taking place in one location, to one person. You need to look at everything, at the same time, in the entire universe. Look at every person, every creature. Turn over every rock.

See? In one glistening instant, plucked from the stream of time as it passes by: countless episodes, from a myriad of human lives, all vital, all entangled in a shared moment.

So many threads...”
― Brent Hayward, The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter

“All gods are selfish and vain. Gods demand worship. Gods demand prayer.”
― Brent Hayward, Head Full of Mountains

“Idealism and naiveté were youthful cousins. Foresight and the considerations of age and experience often brought inaction, compromise, second-guessing; the ability to foresee the extent of actions--to understand implications of cause and effect--could effectively thwart spontaneous, if impractical, decisions.”
― Brent Hayward, The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter