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“and i remember that at that moment everything stood still. the sun didn't move and the earth didn't move, the sky stared down, waiting, and i put my hand on my heart to make it start beating again.” 194

“she watched me for a moment, then she went away again. i watched the sky. it was as though it had something to say to me. i was in some strange place, alone. everything was still.” 196

“he smiles, and stands… looking me dead in the eye. something travels from him to me, it is love and courage. yes. yes. we are going to make it, somehow. somehow. i stand, and smile... he turns into the inferno. i walk toward the sahara.” 184

“people always know the outside better than they know the inside.” 184

“yet, when he grinned, i saw, all over again, my lover, as though for the first time.” 193

“every day, when he sees my face, he knows, again, that i love him—and God knows i do, more and more, deeper and deeper, with every hour… he is not alone; we are not alone. “ 162

“the mind is like an object that picks up dust. the object doesn't know, any more then the mind does, why what clings to it clings. but once whatever it is lights on you, it doesn't go away” 171

“i had crossed my river. now, we were one.” 144

“despair can make one monstrous, but it can also make one noble” 152

“he is young, very, very young, but also very old; but not old in the way that she had expected him to be. she had expected the age of corruption. she is confronting the age of sorrow. she is confronting torment.” 154

“when two people love each other… everything that happens between them has something of a sacramental air… i know of no greater torment, no more resounding void—when your lover has gone! but tonight, with our vows so mysteriously menaced, and with both of us, though from different angles, placed before this fact, we were more profoundly together than we had ever been before.” 143

reading for school

!!!

re read for the new season!

reading for school

chapter 1 -> chapter 12!

HE CALLED HER A SUMMER SIREN, “SHE GLOWED.” he’s smiling from head to toe, stop. he knew the colour coding of her book annotations?!?! “silly little love lover.” i love charlie bushnell! “regarding lizzy, i had all the intentions in the world.” he’s suchhh a tool and they’re sooo awkward i can’t.

in class

"i don't want to sound foolish. but, just remember, love brought you here. if you trusted love this far, don't panic now." 112

“one of the most terrible, most mysterious things about a life is that a warning can be heeded only in retrospect: too late.” 135

"i have been in america a long time, i hope i do not die here." 139

"i know i can't help you very much right now-God knows what i wouldn't give if i could. but i know about suffering; if that helps. i know that it ends. i ain't going to tell you no lies, like it always ends for the better. sometimes it ends for the worse. you can suffer so bad that you can be driven to a place where you can't ever suffer again: and that's worse." 112

“yet longs to be free to confront his life; is terrified at the same time of what that life may bring, is terrified of freedom; and is struggling in a trap. and fonny, who is younger, struggles now to be older, in order to help his friend toward his deliverance. didn't my Lord deliver daniel? and why not every man? the song is old, the question unanswered.” 106

“in complete silence, without moving a muscle, we are laughing with each other… we are together somewhere where no one can reach us, touch us, joined. we are happy… for daniel… sensing that something wonderful has happened to us, which means that wonderful things happen, and that maybe something wonderful will happen to him. It's wonderful, anyway, to be able to help a person to have that feeling.” 105

“neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind. and i could not be indifferent to daniel because i realized, from fonny's face, how marvelous it was for him to have scooped up, miraculously, from the swamp waters of his past, a friend.” 99

“i got two things in my life, man—i got my wood and stone and i got tish. if i lose them, i’m lost. i know that.” 101

“i smiled, and he smiled, and something really human happened between us, for the first time.” 97

“fonny is overjoyed; and the truth is that i recognize daniel by the light in fonny's eyes. for, it is not so much that time has not improved him: i can see to what extent he has been beaten. this is not because i am perceptive, but because i am in love with fonny.” 99

“in another time, he had feared life: now, he feared death-somewhere in time. he awoke every morning with tish on his eyelids and fell asleep every night with tish tormenting his navel. he lived, now, in time, with the roar and the stink and the beauty and horror of innumerable men: had been dropped into this inferno in the twinkling of an eye.
time could not be bought. the only coin time accepted was life.” 95

“somewhere, in time, fonny and i had met: somewhere, in time, we had loved; somewhere, no longer in time, but, now, totally, at time's mercy, we loved.” 95

“that's why i'm here. you're her father. you love her. and so i know you know—you have to know—that i love her. i've loved her all my life. you know that…i know you might want to beat me up. but i love her. that's all i can tell you." 85

“but—it’s very frightening to belong to somebody." 89

“just remember that i belong to you. just remember that i wouldn't hurt you for nothing in this world. you just going to have to get used to me. and we got all the time in the world." 78

“the body of one's lover always is, no matter how well one gets to know it: it is the changing envelope which contains the gravest mystery of one's life.” 82

“i like laying here like this, with you.” 80

baldwins prose is transformative. while listening to “the first time i ever saw your face” by james blake during fonny and tish’ first time, i felt the words i was reading encapsulated the striking emotional connection two love-struck young adults can share in any given period of time. i am in awe of how ubiquitous baldwins writing is.

“…when you come home most likely i'll just grunt and keep on with my chisels and maybe sometimes you'll think i don't even know you're there. but don't ever think that, ever. you're with me all the time, all the time, without you i don't know if i could make it at all, baby, and when i put down the chisel, i'll always come to you. i'll always come to you. i need you. i love you." 77

“it was like nothing was happening in the world but us. i was not afraid. it was deeper than fear. i could not take my eyes away from his. i could not move. if it was deeper than fear, it was not yet joy. it was wonder.” 75

“within moved his love, moved as a torrent or as a fire moves, above reason, beyond argument, not to be modified in any degree by anything life might do. i was his, and he was mine.” 77

“and he still had that funny smile on his face, like something wonderful had just happened to him and no one in the world knew anything about it yet, but him. but he would tell somebody soon, and it would be me.” 54

“… for he was turned away from me, laughing, but he was holding on to my hand. he was a stranger to me, but joined… i had never seen the love and respect that men can have for each other.” 58

“it's astounding the first time you realize that a stranger has a body—the realization that he has a body makes him a stranger. it means that you have a body, too. you will live with this forever, and it will spell out the language of your life.” 52

“he was the most beautiful person i had seen in all my life… he put an arm around me for protection. i suddenly looked up into his face. no one can describe this, i really shouldn't try. his face was bigger than the world, his eyes deeper than the sun, more vast than the desert, all that had ever happened since time began was in his face. he smiled: a little smile.” 52

“everything was different. i was walking through streets i had never seen before. the faces around me, i had never seen. we moved in a silence which was music from everywhere. perhaps for the first time in my life, i was happy and knew that i was happy, and fonny held me by the hand. it was like that Sunday morning, so long ago, when his mother had carried us to church.” 52

“we were a part of each other, flesh of each other's flesh… he had legs, and i had legs… they brought us up the stairs and down and, always, to each other... fonny liked me so much that it didn't occur to him that he loved me. i liked him so much that no other boy was real to me… i didn't know what this meant. but the waiting moment, which had spied us on the road, and which was waiting for us, knew.” 51

“my father's chest shook with laughter… this laughter contained a furious joy, an unspeakable relief: in spite of all that hung above our heads. i was his daughter, all right: i had found someone to love and i was loved and he was released and verified… our laughter in that kitchen, then, was our helpless response to a miracle... love had sent it, spinning out of us, to us.” 49