Pål Fiva

“It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying onceself Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" with one's head in a Food Fair bag.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
― Dolly Parton

“He says, this silence of More's, it was never really silence, was it? It was loud with his treason; it was quibbling as far as quibbles would serve him, it was demurs and cavils, suave ambiguities. It was fear of plain words, or the assertion that plain words pervert themselves; More's dictionary, against our dictionary. You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall