Tom Harrell

“You shall be my roots and
I will be your shade,
though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and
I will feed you fruit,
though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth
you will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.
And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.
And I will comfort you.
And even when we are nothing left,
not even in death,
I will remember you.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.”
― Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Thro’ good and ill—thro’ weal and wo I love thee.
Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,
Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.
Not on God’s altar, in any time or clime,
Burned there a holier fire than burneth now
Within my spirit for thee.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Politian: An Unfinished Tragedy

“There is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable affliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid- what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”
― Hermann Melville