Clio Velentza

“He stared at the young man, trying to gauge his thoughts and abilities. He looked human, every bit of him – but who was to say what one would find if they cut him open? Sandor was seized by the sudden desire to dissect the scrawny body sitting next to him. Would he find flesh and bone, or sawdust and straw? Or perhaps something more sinister? He shook the thought away.”
― Clio Velentza, The Piano Room

“Mine is a heart of carnelian, crimson as murder on a holy day.”
― Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

“As Laura stood waiting she felt a great longing. It weighed upon her like the load of ripened fruit upon a tree. She forgot the shop, the other customers, her own errand. She forgot the winter air outside, the people going by on the wet pavements. She forgot that she was in London, she forgot the whole of her London life. She seemed to be standing alone in a darkening orchard, her feet in the grass, her arms stretched up to the pattern of leaves and fruit, her fingers seeking the rounded ovals of the fruit among the pointed ovals of the leaves. The air about her was cool and moist. There was no sound, for the birds had left off singing and the owls had not yet begun to hoot. No sound, except sometimes the soft thud of a ripe plum falling into the grass, to lie there a compact shadow among shadows. The back of her neck ached a little with the strain of holding up her arms. Her fingers searched among the leaves.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

“But Petar was gone, and here Ferdi was now, or what was left of him: the bare bones of a questionable soul.”
― Clio Velentza, The Piano Room