Brenda

“Ultimate reality, then, is obscured by the concept of self. It is not the concept alone that is obscuring ultimate reality. Rather it is the reification, the grasping on to the concept, that creates the obscuration. The Tibetan term for reification (dendzin) means grasping on to inherent existence, grasping on to true existence. You decontextualize, you grasp something as existing independently, by its own nature. One example is to believe that there really is an inherently existing person—you or me or anyone—that could be praised or insulted. Moreover, anything believed to exist by itself is a product of reification. This reification is the root of samsara, the cycle of existence.”
― B. Alan Wallace, Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence

“The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot.”
― John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist

“Granny Trill and Granny Wallon were traditional ancients of a kind we won’t see today, the last of that dignity of grandmothers to whom age was its own embellishment. The grandmothers of those days dressed for the part in that curious but endearing uniform which is now known to us only through music-hall. And our two old neighbours, when setting forth on errands, always prepared themselves scrupulously so. They wore high laced boots and long muslin dresses, beaded chokers and candlewick shawls, crowned by tall poke bonnets tied with trailing ribbons and smothered with inky sequins. They looked like starlings, flecked with jet, and they walked in a tinkle of darkness.

Those severe and similar old bodies enthralled me when they dressed that way. When I finally became King (I used to think) I would command a parade of grandmas, and drill them, and march them up and down - rank upon rank of hobbling boots, nodding bonnets, flying shawls, and furious chewing faces. They would be gathered from all the towns and villages and brought to my palace in wagon-loads. No more than a monarch’s whim, of course, like eating cocoa or drinking jellies; but far more spectacular any day than those usual trudging guardsmen.”
― Laurie Lee, Cider with Rosie

“Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things”
― Laurie Lee, Cider with Rosie