Elly Brinkerhoff

“Expand!
You are not small.
Your Foremothers did not do what they did so you could occupy small!”
― Malebo Sephodi

“You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait — a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the “values,” with every modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candlelight, when all the house is still.”
― Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist

“Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.”
― Stephen King, The Gunslinger

“Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human heart; and perhaps it is due to the gardener's innate love of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive.”
― Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist