“With the right ears even a lesser creature can hear the song. It is sung constantly, from the heart of each atom and star. The galaxies hum of shape and form in their essence. That is their secret. The particles whisper of the nature of proper interactions. That is their game. And during a storm, in the forest, on the right night, it is no secret that the leaves all sing of God.”
― The Fifth Science
― The Fifth Science
“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there. Books about birds show pictures of the peregrine, and the text is full of information. Large and isolated in the gleaming whiteness of the page, the hawk stares back at you, bold, statuesque, brightly coloured. But when you have shut the book, you will never see that bird again. Compared with the close and static image, the reality will seem dull and disappointing. The living bird will never be so large, so shiny-bright. It will be deep in landscape, and always sinking farther back, always at the point of being lost. Pictures are waxworks beside the passionate mobility of the living bird.”
― The Peregrine
― The Peregrine
“It is a great deal to ask of a kitten, to defend a man against the armies of the dead.”
― The Other Wind
― The Other Wind
“High on the steep slope of the hill, fieldfares are flying to roost. It is nearly dark. The tall, grizzled pines have a bony serenity. They tower against the skyline of the hill. It seems that beyond them there must be canyons and mist and nothing more. Silence hangs from their branches. The air tastes cold and metallic. The tiercel glides up to the trees, like a shadow. He calls once: a sound as final as the clanging of a portcullis. The glaring eyes squint up, and are sheathed in sleep. The hawk puffs out his feathers, looking cuddly and harmless. Only the armour-plated legs and the sickled toes do not relax, will never relax in life.”
―
―
“It was easy to laugh at Fascism when we imagined that it was based on hysterical nationalism, because it seemed obvious that the Fascist states, each regarding itself as the chosen people and patriotic contra mundum, would clash with one another. But nothing of the kind is happening. Fascism is now an international movement, which means not only that the Fascist nations can combine for purposes of loot, but that they are groping, perhaps only half consciously as yet, towards a world-system. For the vision of the totalitarian state there is being substituted the vision of the totalitarian world.”
― The Road to Wigan Pier
― The Road to Wigan Pier
Andre’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Andre’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Andre
Lists liked by Andre























