Fringe Dwellers Quotes

Some folks are forced to the edges by their difference. (...) But 'tis at the edges that they find their power. ~ Hannah Kent

All eyes turned to look at us' would be a slipshod way of putting it; eyes don't turn anyway, heads do, but as our little group joined the fringe of the assembly, there was a discernible swivelling of attention in our direction. ~ A.P.

You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at right angles propped on her elbows head between her hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your faces are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other's eyes you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade. ~ Samuel Beckett

I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink - oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course - very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it agai ~ Jerome K. Jerome

When I was little, my Aunt Bigeois told me "If you look at yourself too long in the mirror, you'll see a monkey." I must have looked at myself even longer than that: what I see is well below the monkey, on the fringe of the vegetable world, at the level of jellyfish... The eyes especially are horrible seen so close. They are glassy, soft, blind, red-rimmed, they look like fish scales... A silky white down covers the great slopes of the cheeks, two hairs protrude from the nostrils: it is a geological embossed map. And, in spite of everything, this lunar world is familiar to me. I cannot say I recognize the details. But the whole thing gives me an impression of something seen before which stupefies me. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

At New York City's Rose Center of Earth and Space, we display a timeline spiral of the Universe that begins at the Big Bang and unfolds 13.8 billion years. Uncurled, it's the length of a football field. Every step you take spans 50 million years. You get to the end of the ramp, and you ask, where are we? Where is the history of our human species? The entire period of time, from a trillion seconds ago to today, from graffiti-prone cave dwellers until now, occupies only the thickness of a single strand of human hair, which we have mounted at the end of that timeline. You think we live long lives, you think civilizations last a long time, but not from the view of the cosmos itself. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

FOREST OF DOOM: This is usually the home of mobile and prehensile TREES. There will e giant SPIDERS too, and Dwellers near the centre who will want to SACRIFICE any stranger to their God. It is best to avoid the place if possible. But the Management usually insists on sending you there. An OLD RUINED CITY is sometimes situated in the heart of this Forest.
See also WOODS. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world. ~ Agnes Repplier

The King of Hell was everything they said he was, both less and more. He was reputed to have the ability to seduce an abbess or the pope himself, and she could see why. It wasn't his physical beauty, which was considerable. He had dark blue eyes behind a fringe of ridiculously long lashes, pale, beautiful skin, the kind of mouth that could bring despair and delight- and what the hell was she doing, thinking about such things?
He looked younger than his reputed age, around forty, and while his long dark hair was streaked with silver it only made him seem more leonine, more dangerous. He was tall, and he moved with an elegant grace that put dancers to shame. He was standing far too close to her, to the gun she'd stolen from Jacobs while he was busy with the carriage, and he was looking at her with far too much interest and absolutely no fear. ~ Anne Stuart

To see things as they really are renders life almost completely intolerable. Myself because I have, I believe, at least in part, seen things as they really are, I could never act. I have always remained on the fringe of actions. So, is it desirable that people come to see things as they really are? I don't know. I believe that, in general, people are incapable of it. So therefore it is true that only a monster can see things as they really are, because the monster lies outside of humanity. ~ Emil Cioran

Losing your family ... .it puts fear in a different perspective," he said. "Besides, I got by all right. I stayed on the fringe around Chicago, hoped around tent cities and Red Cross camps. Worked for some people who didn't ask questions. Avoided case-workers and foster care. And thought about you."
"Me?" I huffed, completely unsettled. In awe at how vanilla my life seemed. In awe of what he'd endured, He turned then, meeting my eyes for the first time. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and unashamed.
"You. The only thing in my life that doesn't change. When everything went to hell, you were all I had. ~ Kristen Simmons

Some of the ideas that come from the fringe of the far right are just so implausible that it is hard to take those ideas seriously. ~ John Conyers

They seek the edges, because it is the edges that ultimately lead us. A wise person does not fear the edges and fringes, but studies them. Indeed, he or she is often in them, working to make change happen. ~ Laurie Beth Jones

Goodness its the kind of work I come to the Fringe to see ~ Lyn Gardner

If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe. ~ Kerry Thornley

I wrenched the door out of my way―ridiculously eager―and there he was, my personal miracle.
Time had not made me immune to the perfection of his face, and I was sure that I would never take any aspect of him for granted. My eyes traced over his pale white features: the hard square of his jaw, the softer curve of his full lips―twisted up into a smile now, the straight line of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the smooth marble span of his forehead―partially obscured by a tangle of rain-darkened bronze hair . . .
I saved his eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to lose my train of thought. They were wide, warm with liquid gold, and framed by a thick fringe of black lashes. Staring into his eyes always made me feel extraordinary―sort of like my bone were turning spongy. I was also a little lightheaded, but that could have been because I'd forgotten to keep breathing. Again. ~ Stephenie Meyer

Berta, like so many Great Russians, thought of Kiev and the surrounding provinces as a Russian outpost: provincial, backward, but Russified to some extent. She had a respect for both the Polish and German influences there, but agreed with the authorities that the Ukrainian culture and language had little to offer. It was banned in the schools and in the government institutions and was thought to be the purlieu of reprobates, lazy slum dwellers, and rustics. Berta was born in Little Russia, a small fact that she never bothered to share with anyone of consequence. She was a Great Russian, as anyone could see by her fierce accomplishments, tasteful dress, and overall refinement. ~ Susan Sherman

Not until the beginning of the 20th century did Europe's urban populations finally become self-sustaining: before then, constant immigration of healthy peasants from the countryside was necessary to make up for the constant deaths of city dwellers from crowd diseases. ~ Jared Diamond

Sometimes I wore a fringe so deep it obscured the way ahead. This hardly mattered. There were always others to look where I was going. ~ Quentin Crisp

Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance ... to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony , between its tides and the life of man ... The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent. ~ James G. Frazer

He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom. ~ Anton Chekhov

A fire was licking at the fringe of one of the drapes that hung from the four posters of Mr. Rochester's bed. It cast a warm light through the gloom, illuminating his face while he slept. The glow became him; as the fire danced, its darting light softened the severe lines of his brow and lip.
"Please fall in love with me," Jane whispered. It shouldn't be totally out of the realm of possibility. After all, Mr. Darcy fell in love with the nearly destitute Elizabeth Bennet. It could be like one of those stories Charlotte and the other girls at Lowood were always telling - the ones with rich, handsome suitors, not the ones about murder.
Wait.
Murder.
The bed was still on fire. ~ Cynthia Hand

There was movement along the fringe of Chauncey's vision, and he snapped his head to the left. At first glance what appeared to be a large angel topping a nearby monument rose to full height. Neither stone nor marble, the boy had arms and legs. His torso was naked, his feet were bare, and peasant trousers hung low on his waist. He hopped down from the monument, the ends of his hair dripping rain. It slid down his face, which was dark as a Spaniard's. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

If Jesus had been an actual historical figure we have a thorny paradox. Either this Jesus was a remarkable individual who said and did a host of amazing, revolutionary things – but no one outside his fringe cult noticed for over a century. Or he didn't – and yet shortly after his death, tiny communities of worshipers that cannot agree about the most basic facts of his life spring up, scattered all across the empire. The truth is inescapable: there simply could never have been a historical Jesus. ~ David Fitzgerald

The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children literally alter the destiny of nations. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

You know obviously a big TV or film break would be lovely, but I find that I'm essentially a theatre trained actor and that's what I love doing. I love fringe theatres in London, I love theatres like the Royal Court, Soho and the National obviously and if I could work in any of those and be a jobbing actor for a while then I'm very lucky. ~ Kit Harington

'Fringe' is a sci-fi show. But once you go beyond the genre, you're immersed in a profound reality. ~ Anna Torv

Growing up on the fringe, you came to accept hard truths. Nothing was fair. the world was cold, unforgiving, and people died. it was just the way things were. ~ Julie Kagawa

Cooking is work that is traditionally done by working-class people. The work itself is not glamorous. It's repetitive, and it's a lot closer to factory work than art, whatever level you're doing it at. Certainly chefs are used to living like rock 'n' rollers to some extent, inasmuch as we get a lot of those fringe benefits without having to learn how to play guitar. ~ Anthony Bourdain

That was just it, wasn't it? That's what we were: dwellers all in time and space. Not old scraps of iron lashed together like a Meccano set by some invisible builder - not on your bloody life! ~ Alan Bradley

The language of commerce has been engineered to describe the overt purpose of a thing, but cannot encompass fringe benefits or peripheral pleasures. It weighs the obvious against what in its terms are incomprehensible. When I drive from here to there, speed, privacy, control, and safety are easy to claim. When I walk, what happens is more vague, more ambiguous-and in many circumstances much richer. I am out in the world. It's exercise, though not so quantifiably as on a treadmill in a gym with a digital readout. ~ Rebecca Solnit

We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture. ~ Peter Block

In the first week of April the weather turned suddenly, unseasonably, insistently lovely. The sky was blue, the air warm and windless, and the sun beamed on the muddy ground with all the sweet impatience of June. Toward the fringe of the wood, the young trees were yellow with the first tinge of new leaves; woodpeckers laughed and drummed in the copses and, lying in bed with my window open, I could hear the rush and gurgle of the melted snow running in the gutters all night long.
In the second week of April everyone waited anxiously to see if the weather would hold. It did, with serene assurance. Hyacinth and daffodil bloomed in the flower beds, violet and periwinkle in the meadows; damp, bedraggled white butterflies fluttered drunkenly in the hedgerows. I put away my winter coat and overshoes and walked around, nearly light-headed with joy, in my shirtsleeves. ~ Donna Tartt

Speaking as someone who bought the party line for far too long, you would be amazed what you can believe if you keep convincing yourself the press, the libs, the universities - hell, everyone but a few on the religious fringe and big business - are out to get you. I was lucky - I started to snap out of this a couple of years ago and hopefully will now apply to both major parties the same skepticism and cynicism I had in the past reserved for Democrats. ~ John Cole

This time, I sat next to a pixie girl called Takara, who had pinkish hair and wore a bright pink dress to match. She was the first forest-dweller I had seen wearing jewellery: she was wearing a necklace and bracelet of finely worked crystal beads. When she noticed my interest, she removed her bracelet and held it out to me.
"Sophiel, I would be so pleased if you would wear this!"
I was surprised by this kind and very selfless gesture; after all, I had not been admiring her jewels with any intention of asking her to part with them!
"You're very kind, Takara, but I was merely admiring your handiwork!" I said, trying politely to refuse her gift. "Mitsuko told me that you make your jewellery yourself. You're very talented, they're really lovely pieces, but I wouldn't want to take them away from you. It's you that makes these jewels really beautiful! ~ A.O. Esther

Once renunciation and the awakened mind have been fully realized, the way to Buddhahood is clear. Liberation is complete and such liberated beings are then Bodhisattvas and Buddhas: "enlightened ones," or "empty dwellers." Their usefulness to others both before and after their physical death, is impossible to conceive. They are nothing but useful energy leading to liberation for all beings still caught in conditioned existence. ~ Maura O'Halloran

It is fatal for any body of workers to have forever hanging from the fringes of its skirts other bodies on a level just below its own; for that means continual pressure downward, additional difficulty to be overcome in the struggle to maintain reasonable rates of wages. ~ Florence Kelley

Coming as a kind of pleasure-package with her parents and sisters, as a girl Theodora performed acrobatic tricks and erotic dances in and around the hippodrome – part of the fringe of shows, spectacles and penny theatricals that accompanied the games. It was said by contemporary chroniclers that one of Theodora's most popular turns was a re-enactment of the story of Leda (the mother of Helen of Troy) and the Swan (Zeus in disguise). The Greek myth went that Zeus was so enraptured with Queen Leda when he espied her bathing by the banks of the River Eurotas that he turned himself into a swan so that he could ravish the Spartan Queen. Theodora, as Leda, would leave a trail of grain up on to (some said into) her body, which the 'swan' (in Constantinople in fact a goose) then eagerly consumed. The Empress's detractors delighted in memorialising the fact that Theodora's services were eagerly sought out for anal intercourse, as both an active and a passive partner. As a child and as an adolescent woman Theodora would have been considered dirt, but she was, physically, right at the heart of human affairs in a burgeoning city in interesting times.

Theodora was also, obviously, wildly attractive. Born in either Cyprus or Syria, as a teenager – already the mother of a young girl and with a history of abortions – she left Constantinople as the companion of a Syrian official, the governor of Libya Pentapolis. The two travelled to North Africa, where, after four years of maltre ~ Bettany Hughes

Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. ~ Theodore Kaczynski

And among those that came from the vaulted heavens of silver, the Tiste Andii, dwellers of Darkness in the Place before Light, Black Dragons numbering five, and in their league sailed red-winged Silanah, said to dwell among the Tiste Andii in their Fang of Darkness descending from the vaulted heavens of silver ~ Steven Erikson

Sleep is the sister of death and the dwellers of heaven will not sleep ~ Nazr Mohammed

Naked Girl and Mirror

This is not I. I had no body once-
only what served my need to laugh and run
and stare at stars and tentatively dance
on the fringe of foam and wave and sand and sun.
Eyes loved, hands reached for me, but I was gone
on my own currents, quicksilver, thistledown.
Can I be trapped at last in that soft face?

I stare at you in fear, dark brimming eyes.
Why do you watch me with that immoderate plea-
'Look under these curled lashes, recognize
that you were always here; know me-be me.'
Smooth once-hermaphrodite shoulders, too tenderly
your long slope runs, above those sudden shy
curves furred with light that spring below your space.

No, I have been betrayed. If I had known
that this girl waited between a year and a year,
I'd not have chosen her bough to dance upon.
Betrayed, by that little darkness here, and here
this swelling softness and that frightened stare
from eyes I will not answer; shut out here
from my own self, by its new body's grace-

for I am betrayed by someone lovely. Yes,
I see you are lovely, hateful naked girl.
Your lips in the mirror tremble as I refuse
to know or claim you. Let me go-let me be gone.
You are half of some other who may never come.
Why should I tend you? You are not my own;
you seek that other-he will be your home.

Yet I pity your eyes in the mirror, misted ~ Judith A. Wright