Emily Richards

“SHORE-LARK
During the week, the shore-lark works in the City and flies home every night with its mate in Wimbledon, where it is a model husband and father. At weekends, however, it migrates briefly on Brighton, on any of one hundred pretexts, where is meets female shore-larks under the pier and seeks to recapture its lost youth.”
― Alan Coren

“Graceful. Lean. Coordinated as she whirls, though how she knows what dancing is, [her grandfather] could never guess.

The song plays on. He lets it go too long. The antenna is still up, probably dimly visible against the sky, the whole attic might as well shine like a beacon. But in the candlelight, in the sweet rush of a concerto, Marie-Laure bites her lower lip, and her face gives off a secondary glow, reminding him of the marshes beyond the town walls, in those winter dusks when the sun has set but isn't fully swallowed, and big patches of red pools of light burn - places he used to go with his brother, in what seems like lifetimes ago.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.”
― William Blake

“Nothing boosts confidence quite like simulating a disaster, engaging with it fully, both physically and intellectually, and realising you have the ability to work the problem.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth