Mark Patterson

“On older trees still than these huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was deformed....the taper was interrupted..and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.”
― Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders

“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd.”
― Mabinogion, The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch O Hergest, and Other Ancient Welsh Mss.

“The Bardic robe..disguises imperfections of figure: round shoulders, bosoms of unmodish size or shape...too-insistent buttocks, knock knees and bandy legs, all are mitigated in the merciful folds of the robe...but whatever the type of robe --soutane, sari, academic gown or Bardic wrap -- its effect is often destroyed by disillusioning shoes.”
― Ithell Colquhoun, The Living Stones: Cornwall

“Sept.17 (1780). When we call loudly thro' the speaking-trumpet to Timothy ( the tortoise), he does not seem to regard the noise. Sept.18. Timothy eats heartily. Oct.3. No ring-ouzels seen this autumn yet. Timothy very dull.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Portrait of a Tortoise: Extracted from the Journals & Letters of Gilbert White