Oliver Heley

“Cosimo sat in the ash tree every day, gazing at the meadow as if he could read in it something that had long been consuming him inside: the very idea of distance, of the gap that can't be bridged, of the wait that can last longer than life.”
― Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees

“Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
― C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns

“You see... War... For years now I've been dealing as best I can with a thing that in itself is appalling; war... and all this for ideals which I shall never, perhaps, be able to explain fully to myself..."
"I too," replied Cosimo, "have lived many years for ideals which I would never be able to explain to myself; but I do something entirely good; I live on trees.”
― Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees

“This he understood: that association makes people stronger and brings out each person's best gifts, and gives a joy which is rarely to be had by keeping to oneself, the joy of realizing how many honest decent capable people there are for whom it is worth giving one's best (while living just for oneself very often the opposite happens, of seeing people's other side, the side which makes one keep one's hand always on the hilt of one's sword).”
― Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees