Hawthorne Quotes

Tap Life on the shoulders and fall a little more in love. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

That last night," she said quietly. "Why did you say you hoped you'd never see me again?"
He hadn't said it; it had been his last thought when he'd turned to leave. But he didn't seem to notice the discrepancy as he looked at her now.
"Because," he began before faltering, his voice leaving on a sigh. His left hand reached to rake a path through his hair, scattering the inky thickness in all directions. "The more I learn of you, the more difficult it is to stay away. ~ Angela B. Wade

These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service - these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better - can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare - than God's own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "It ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Crack!
I covered my head, ducked down. Bird didn't laugh. She likened me to a survivor of some traumatic event who is always spooked by certain noises.
She just touched my shoulder and said, "It went the other way."
I straightened up. "But it was a foul ball."
"Yeah."
I hated that I kept flinching. I wondered how long it was going to take before I could totally relax at a game. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us.. ~ Nathanial Hawthorne

A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Every crime destroys more Edens than our own ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Life is made up of marble and mud. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Do I have clueless tattooed across my forehead?"
Narrowing my eyes,I leaned toward him. "Yeah,I think maybe you do. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Take a kid fishing; if nothing else, you'll capture their imagination. ~ Max Hawthorne

True; there are such men," answered Mr. Dimmesdale. "But not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or - can we not suppose it? - guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." "These ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Takashi had no choice, and he'd always known it. This was one reason he'd tried
so hard not to care about anyone, one reason why he'd known immediately just how dangerous Summer Hawthorne could be. Because now she was the one he couldn't sacrifice, couldn't walk away from, no matter how high the stakes. He could die for what he believed in. He just couldn't let her die as well. ~ Anne Stuart

What a strange, sad man is he!" said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. "In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with is hand always over his heart! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings as now in October. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. "Thou hast done it! Thou has blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself – a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

If cities were built by the sound of music, then some edifices would appear to be constructed by grave, solemn tones,
others to have danced forth to light fantastic airs. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I leaned my head back. "I look worse than I did the night you met me."
"I thought you looked fine."
I rolled my head to the side, so I could see him. Hoping the shadows made it so he couldn't see me. "What are you talking about? I looked like a Cirque du Soleil performer."
"What are you talking about?"
"The black dots around my eyes?"
He shook his head. "I'm lost."
"You were staring--"
"Oh, yeah." He gazed through the windshield. "Sorry about that. I've just never seen eyes as green as yours. I was trying to figure out if you wore contacts."
"You were looking at my eyes?"
"Yeah."
"Not the makeup?"
He turned his attention back to me. "I didn't realize you were wearing any. That night, anyway. Tonight it's pretty obvious."
"Oh." Didn't I feel silly? "I thought--" I shook my head. "Never mind." On second thought...
"You don't like all the makeup?"
"I just don't think you need it. I mean, you look pretty without it."
Oh, really? That was totally unexpected. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Can I ask you a question?" I asked after a few minutes.
"Sure."
"I've always wondered…what exactly do a catcher and pitcher discuss at the mound?"
He studied me for a second, before finally saying, "Last night we talked about you. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

The huge house looked as if some architectural master had put it together before handing it over to the spoilt son of some rich benefactor who had decided to have his way with it. ~ Will Hawthorne

Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The experiment, so far as its original projectors were concerned, proved, long ago, a failure; first lapsing into Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. Where ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

He was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sure you don't want any?"
He shrugged and leaned toward me. "Okay, I'll take some."
Which I'd so not expected, and which had me wondering what I was supposed to do now. Stick my spoon in his mouth?
I felt a cold drip on the hand holding the carton and realized my spoon was suspended and the ice cream was starting to melt. I extended it toward him, watched as his mouth closed around my spoon. Now what? I was so not used to feeding guys.
He wrapped his hand around my wrist and guided my hand back. I watched appreciation glide over his face like hot fudge over a banana split.
"It tastes like you," he said.
The heat rushed into my face. "Uh, yeah, my lip balm…same flavor."
"I think it just became my favorite ice cream."
Ookaay. So was that an endorsement of my kiss? ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Paint with freedom. It gives you more mastery of the nature of paint. ~ Charles Webster Hawthorne

Hester, in the dark conclusion of Hawthorne's brooding novel, reassumes the Puritan mantle….Hawthorne thus captures the catch-22 of feminism: the very woman who is able to envision a new order of living is, by the same token, unable, since the passion that enables her also adulterates her in the eyes of the Puritans. Released from goodness, she is imprisoned in badness, within the framework of the puritanical order. But her mind is free to question the order. ~ Carol Gilligan

Teaser from the soon to be released: Redemption of Fire; My Demon Master Book 2. (with Reference to the character, Cain, from Dormant Desires, Book 4; CAIN.

In the oddest, surreal moment, I look out and see one lone face. It's Cain, the chimera by curse and not birth. He's been welcomed into Demon-kind as one of them. Almost a treasured being for all his uniqueness. In all reality, he is the most divine among us. The product of an angel and a Neanderthal. A very son of the first Eve. It is he alone who is not prostrate before me. Our eyes lock and my vision goes wonky. I can see details and colors and etched outlines like I never imagined. I see Cain's magnificent aura as it embraces him like a full-body halo. He is watching the spectacle that is me with detached interest. It's as if he has truly seen everything there is too see and this is nothing more than a repeat of some long forgotten original episode. He is unafraid. I can feel how calm he is. Before he drops his eyes, surrendering to the dominance of my dragon, he gives me a slightly amused expression and a small nod of encouragement. ~ Payne Hawthorne

There are landscapes and species that are not going to be here a hundred years from now, fifty years from now. One gift we as writers give to the world is to bear witness to these landscapes and species as we have experienced them. ~ Alison Hawthorne Deming

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of of deepest sin in the most sacred of quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I'm going to miss all the takeout," Jason said later, after dinner, when I walked him out to his car. "Coach said his wife cooks their meals every night."
"That's really why you're leaving, isn't it?" I asked. "For real home-cooked meals? ~ Rachel Hawthorne

A modern child could teach old Hepzibah more than old Hepzibah could teach the child. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy or too awkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard the real actors in life's stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact, that the former are usually fain to make it palatable to their self-love, by assuming that these active and forcible qualities are incompatible with others, which they chose to deem higher and more important. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

There can be ... no power ... to disclose ... the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them until the day when all hidden things be revealed. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Again, after a blank moment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in his eyeballs. It betokened that his spiritual part had returned, and was doing its best to kindle the heart's household fire, and light up intellectual lamps in the dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed to be a forlorn inhabitant. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Some illusions ... are the shadows of great truths. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

What an incomparable creature is the sea! ("Absolute Evil") ~ Julian Hawthorne

Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted the Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly error, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I was a hip-hop head. When I really found my own lane in music, it was hip-hop. I wanted to make hip-hop music. And I did, I made a lot of hip-hop music. ~ Mayer Hawthorne

That old woman taught me my catechism! said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

This was insane!
Yes, he was hot, but so was Nick. Yes, he was nice, but so was Nick. Yes, he sent shivers of anticipation through me. But so did Nick. Okay, so they weren't this strong. But they were
there.
Parker terrified me. Nick didn't.
Nick was safe, like a carousel.
Parker was the tallest, fastest, scariest thrill ride imaginable. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Big surprise. Mom had instituted a curfew. Like there was something we'd do after midnight that we wouldn't do before. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I found him in the kitchen, at the table in the bay window, already eating his cereal.
"I was going to fix you breakfast," I said.
He grinned. "I wouldn't want you to put yourself out."
"No one can pour cereal like I can. That's true."
I crossed the kitchen. He scooted his chair back, and I sat on his lap and put my arms on his shoulders.
"Good morning," I said, right before I kissed him.
Oh, yes, this was definitely the way to start the day.
"We're in the house," he said when we stopped kissing. "Thought we had a rule about not kissing in the house."
"Yeah, we also had a house rule--no falling for the player living with us. You see how good I am at following rules."
He grinned. "Lucky for me. Why don't you come to Ruby Tuesday for lunch?"
"Okay."
"Then practice."
"Definitely."
"Maybe we could do something afterward."
"Absolutely."
He kissed me again. He tasted like bran flakes and raisins and bananas.
Me, I tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough.
It was an odd combination but it somehow worked. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Great.My brother was an entertainer and I was a sleeping pill. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Sunlight is painting. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I'm always trying to ask myself both "Who am I as an individual?" and "What are the cultural forces that have made me the person that I am?" How can I understand myself as a cultural creature as well as an individual? I'm really obsessed with that question, and always asking my students to consider it. ~ Alison Hawthorne Deming

My dad taught me to play bass. He's a bass player; he still plays in a band in Michigan to this day. He taught me to play bass when I was about 6. I used to just go to band practice with him, and whoever didn't show up for rehearsal that day, I would take their spot. ~ Mayer Hawthorne

Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The holy and generous wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart towards heaven, often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Little, impalpable worlds, were those soap-bubbles, with the big world depicted, in hues bright as imagination, on the nothing of their surface. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored. ~ Jonathan Stroud

Keep alone; keep alive. ~ Angela B. Wade

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842] ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Benevolence is the twin of pride. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster-and thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster
without man, as her acknowledged principal! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It's important that when kids are listening to my music they don't think of it as their parent's music. ~ Mayer Hawthorne

Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

May not one man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell; it may be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child, with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live any where or any how on earth, without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble will vanish, and all be Heaven. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The child probably overheard their voices; for, looking up to the window, with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light missile. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is because the spirit is inestimable, that the lifeless body is so little valued. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

you mourn, you hurt and you start to heal. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts; and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together that there was no painful perception of deficiency, ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Shout out to Daryl Hall. He is the best. One of my true musical heroes. He comes from the Philly area so when it comes to true soul, the guy obviously is the expert. ~ Mayer Hawthorne

It is good to know one's enemy.
It is better to know one's self. ~ Max Hawthorne

Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Clifford, except for Phoebe's more active instigation, would ordinarily have yielded to the torpor which had crept through all his modes of being, and which sluggishly counselled him to sit in his morning chair, till eventide. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Life seems complicated to me; I feel confused a lot of the time by life. I feel confused about the fact that we can be so tender as creatures to one another, and so monstrous at the same time. ~ Alison Hawthorne Deming

Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. ~ John Irving

It did not occur to me that absence of human companionship does not assure solitude. It may, on the contrary, plunge one into an environment compared with which New York or London would appear deserts. For we take memory and imagination with us. The seabirds that scream overhead or waddle along the margins of the surf; the grotesque forms of twisted cedars; the rustle of sea-grass in the wind; the interminable percussion of the breakers; the dead infinity of the sand itself - there can be no solitude, in the sense of freedom from disturbances of thought, in the presence of such things. They draw us back into the maelstrom. ("Absolute Evil") ~ Julian Hawthorne

The bookworm of great libraries. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

How is it possible to sayan unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It is so hard and long before a student comes to a realization that these [first] few large simple spots in right relations are the most important things in the study of painting. They are the fundamentals of all painting. ~ Charles Webster Hawthorne

In this age of consumer activism, pinpoint marketing, and unlimited and immediate information, we want the impossible: products and producers that will assure us that we are fashionable, and that don't pollute, harm animals, or contain weird chemicals, that run on alternative energy, pay their workers good salaries, recycle their scraps, use natural ingredients, buy from local suppliers, donate generously to charity, donate in particular to their neighborhoods, and don't throw their weight around by lobbying. (Or maybe they should lobby for the right causes?) ~ Fran Hawthorne

This world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude encounters with the multi-tude ... But living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart ... I used to think that I could imagine all passions, all feelings and states of the heart and mind; but how little did I know! ... Indeed, we are but shadows - we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream - till the heart be touched. That touch creates us, - then we begin to be, - thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

We are all walking museums, housing our small portion of the epic human story. ~ James Hawthorne

Wishing I had a towel, I used my fingers to wipe the raindrops off my face. My wet face that had been partially protected by the brim of his cap. Which would have worked if the rain fell straight down. This had been slashing across.
"Oh, no."
"What?" Jason said.
"Turn on the light."
He did. I lowered the sun visor, looked at my reflection in the mirror, groaned, and slapped the visor back into place. "Turn the light off."
"What's wrong?"
I didn't look at him, didn't want him to see. "The makeup ran."
Not as badly as I'd expected, but I had dark smudges beneath my eyes and my bruising was more visible.
"So what?"
I leaned my head back. "I look worse than I did the night you met me."
"I thought you looked fine."
I rolled my head to the side, so I could see him. Hoping the shadows made it so he couldn't see me. "What are you talking about? I looked like a Cirque de Soleil performer."
"What are you talking about?"
"The black dots around my eyes?"
He shook his head. "I'm lost."
"You were staring--"
"Oh, yeah." He gazed through the windshield. "Sorry about that. I've just never seen eyes as green as yours. I was trying to figure out if you wore contacts."
"You were looking at my eyes?"
"Yeah."
"Not the makeup."
He turned his attention back to me. "I didn't realize you were wearing any. That night, anyway. Tonight it's pretty obvious."
"Oh." Didn't I feel silly? "I thought--" I ~ Rachel Hawthorne

My fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Kiss Cam seemed to trigger the real start of our date…or maybe it just served as an ice breaker where kissing was concerned. Because after the entire stadium had seen us kiss, Jason wasn't quite so shy about kissing me anymore. Not long, slow kisses, not the kind of kisses that you didn't want broadcast on national TV, but kisses just the same.
Whenever the pitcher struck out someone…kiss.
When the Rangers got a hit…kiss.
When they got a run…longer kiss.
He held my hand, smiled at me, and just seemed really glad that I was there. I was glad I was there, too. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

There are certain things money can't buy. Chief among these are manners, class, honor and integrity. Oh, and sanity. Let's not forget that one . . . ~ Max Hawthorne

Even if the cables hold,your heart might not. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

I've loved him forever, but he can never be mine. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Between trying to forget him and trying to impress Mac, my nerves were definitely on edge. Add Tiffany to the mix, and I could see only disaster on the horizon. I just wasn't certain how many of her silly comments I'd have patience for tonight.
I glanced over at Mac and really wished I hadn't, because his gaze was focused on Tiffany, or as much of her as he could see, considering he was sitting right behind her. Tiffany with her hair all flowing around her, her makeup all perfect, and her shoulders bare because she was wearing a halter top.
My tolerance for silly comments was going to be zero. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

If you knew how hard I found it to stay on my side of the hall last night after we finished watching the movie…" He shook his head. "Your parents absolutely wouldn't approve of the direction that my thoughts are going. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Drink then," he replied, still with the same cold composure.
"Does thou know mw so little Hester Pyrnne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could i do better for my object than to let thee live-than to give the medicines against all harm and peril of life-so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

For, has not the world come to an awfully sophisticated pass, when, after a certain degree of acquaintance with it, we cannot even put ourselves to death in whole-hearted simplicity? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Doc fell in to a car convoy, moving slowly, single lane through the fog. He figured if he missed the Gordita Beach exit, he'd take the first one whose sign he could read and work his way back on surface streets. He knew that at Rosecrans, the freeway began to dogleg east, and at some point, Hawthorne Boulevard or Artesia,he'd lose the fog, unless it was spreading tonight, and settled in region wide... Maybe then it would stay this way for days, maybe he'd have to just keep driving, down past Long Beach, down through Orange County, and San Diego and across a border where nobody could
tell anymore in the fog who was Mexican, who was Anglo, who was anybody. Then again, he might run out of gas before that happened, and have to leave the caravan, and pull over on the shoulder, and wait. For whatever would happen. For a forgotten joint to
materialize in his pocket. For the CHP to come by and choose not to hassle him. For a restless blonde in a Stingray to stop and offer him a ride. For the fog to burn off, and for something else this time, somehow, to be there instead. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hey, college-bound?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you always kick guys in the nuts when they try to kiss you?"
"Maybe you should try it sometime and find out. ~ Rachel Hawthorne