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“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”
― A Gentleman in Moscow
― A Gentleman in Moscow

“All the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience.”
― A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
― A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“There is a mythical element to our childhood, it seems, that stays with us always. When we are young, we consume the world in great gulps, and it consumes us, and everything is mysterious and alive and fills us with desire and wonder, fear, and guilt. With the passing of the years, however, those memories become distant and malleable, and we shape them into the stories of who we are. We are brave, or we are cowardly. We are loving, or we are cruel.”
― To the Bright Edge of the World
― To the Bright Edge of the World
“They are only bats, nothing more," Mother said.
Father whispered to me alone, "These are no ordinary bats. These are mice who swim with the stars.”
― To The Bright Edge of the World
Father whispered to me alone, "These are no ordinary bats. These are mice who swim with the stars.”
― To The Bright Edge of the World
“What is it that causes us to fall in love? We are met with those first, initial glimpses-- a kind of curiosity, a longing for that which is both familiar and unknown in the other. And then comes the surprise of discovery; we share certain aspirations, certain appreciations, and that which is different excites us. Before each other, we are moved to bravery and we come to reveal more and more of ourselves, and when we do, those very traits that caused us some embarrassment or shame become beautiful in ways we did not understand before, and the entire world becomes more beautiful for it. There are, too, those intimate and nearly primitive stirrings, the scent of the neck, the delicious tremble of skin and breath. Yet for all their pleasures, they are as tenuous as light and air, and demand no fidelity.
And then there is this: Does not love depend on some belief in the future, some expectation beyond the delight of the moment? We fall in love because we imagine a certain life together. We will marry. We will laugh and dance together. We will have children.
When expectation falls to ruins, what is there left for love?”
― To The Bright Edge of the World
And then there is this: Does not love depend on some belief in the future, some expectation beyond the delight of the moment? We fall in love because we imagine a certain life together. We will marry. We will laugh and dance together. We will have children.
When expectation falls to ruins, what is there left for love?”
― To The Bright Edge of the World

No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read ...more

Literature from across Europe: Wales *Family photo of 7 January 1892. Angharad (1876-1932) is on the very left. *Illustration of "Llanrhaiadr Hall: ...more
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