LA Brower > LA's Quotes

“Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner -- what is it?
if not the intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose

“They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“Everyone around her was just between escaping something and not knowing what might come for them next. All they could do was find those people whose hands they would hold fast when they ran.”
― Elizabeth Ames

“Were they waiting then, huddled together on that bench? Could they sense their gravest mistakes beside them, or know only that they would need to stay within reach of one another as they tested, in turn, how far they could wander from their shared shore before they risked being swept out to sea?”
― Elizabeth Ames

“They were locked together now in this new way, by blood, by Alice's secret, her worst act. They'd sworn in blood under the moon to keep Alice's secret, and in this way the vowed to keep future secrets, too.”
― Elizabeth Ames

“They could die behind this door together, gasping for air, and tonight they wouldn't mind. They were majestic, transcendent, in love. They were stupid and awful and they were fools. They hated one another, but only because they sometimes hated themselves. They loved the others more than they had loved anyone before, more than they would ever love anyone else on earth, they were certain.”
― Elizabeth Ames

“How they became friends was no great mystery, but now they remained so, braided together beyond their shared college quarters, this transcended the usual alchemy of optimism and obligation that kept friendships intact, kept people from fading into other categories: old friend, college friend, just someone I once knew. None of the four would ever be just anything to the others...”
― Elizabeth Ames, The Other's Gold

“It was not possible to rescue anyone, she knew by now, but you could recognize her. You could see what she showed you, flinch and keep looking, let her find in your own face the truth.”
― Elizabeth Ames, The Other's Gold