Manas Shukla > Manas's Quotes

“The master said You must write what you see.
But what I see does not move me.
The master answered Change what you see.”
― Louise Glück, Vita Nova

“When Hades decided he loved this girl
he built for her a duplicate of earth,
everything the same, down to the meadow,
but with a bed added.
Everything the same, including sunlight,
because it would be hard on a young girl
to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness

Gradually, he thought, he’d introduce the night,
first as the shadows of fluttering leaves.
Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars.
Let Persephone get used to it slowly.
In the end, he thought, she’d find it comforting.

A replica of earth
except there was love here.
Doesn’t everyone want love?

He waited many years,
building a world, watching
Persephone in the meadow.
Persephone, a smeller, a taster.
If you have one appetite, he thought,
you have them all.

Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me. And when one turns,
the other turns—

That’s what he felt, the lord of darkness,
looking at the world he had
constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind
that there’d be no more smelling here,
certainly no more eating.

Guilt? Terror? The fear of love?
These things he couldn’t imagine;
no lover ever imagines them.

He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.
First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.
In the end, he decides to name it
Persephone’s Girlhood.

A soft light rising above the level meadow,
behind the bed. He takes her in his arms.
He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you

but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you’re dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true.”
― Louise Glück

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”
― John Keats

“Touch has a memory.”
― John Keats

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
― John Keats

“I have been astonished that men could die martyrs
for their religion--
I have shuddered at it,
I shudder no more.
I could be martyred for my religion.
Love is my religion
and I could die for that.
I could die for you.
My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.”
― John Keats

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”
― John Keats, The Complete Poems

“I want a brighter word than bright”
― John Keats

“My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I have so much of you in my heart.”
― John Keats

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

“When your weakness are your strengths, you cry.”
― John Fante, The Brotherhood of the Grape

“Oh how I hate you, you filthy. But you're cleaner than me, because you've got no mind to sell, just that poor flesh.”
― John Fante, Ask the Dust

“An unfamiliar city is a fine thing. That's the time and place when you can suppose that all the people you meet are nice. It's dream time. ”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

“If you aren't rich you should always look useful.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“What hath night to do with sleep?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
― John Milton, Areopagitica

“Farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear”
― John Milton

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”
― Herman Melville

“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“people can die of mere imagination”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“the guilty think all talk is of themselves.”
― geoffrey chaucer

“And once he had got really drunk on wine,
Then he would speak no language but Latin.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“One flesh they are; and one flesh, so I'd guess,
Has but one heart, come grief or happiness.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“earn what you can since everything's for sale”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales