Mary Butts Quotes

I thought of my father's wisdom, as though it were buried in a box under a tree. As in the old song - a gold box with a silver pin. Some day I should be grown up, and I should dig up the box and turn the pin. ~ Mary Butts

Sink twice before you strike out for land. ~ Mary Butts

Art is the god you have not seen. ~ Mary Butts

One should be allowed to choose one's burden. ~ Mary Butts

For watching death, and above all, after death; not death in battle, but death after battle, brings one to certain indifferences that are also a form of death. ~ Mary Butts

It is in the nature of any effort to leave something serviceable behind it. ~ Mary Butts

There are two kinds of reading, reading which is contemplation - even a kind of vision & reading for information. For the first only the best will do, for the rest - then one can let in anything one would like to read in the world. ~ Mary Butts

He turned to her - his gesture a superb compound of relief, remorse, passionate candour and bewilderment touched with curiosity; confidence and perfect penitence. Against which Scylla had to brace herself. Against such bravura how dull truth seemed, and difficult to access. Never had the bottom of a well seemed less attractive. She must hear him first. She could go down later. ~ Mary Butts

Frog or pearl, life hid something at the bottom of the cup. ~ Mary Butts

All night the earth and the heavens followed their usual arrangements. Stars passed: an immense tide hung over them. A silent sea raced back with the sun, its wave turn-over small, delicate and comfortless. The most glorious of all stars hung above the sun's threshold and went out. An hour later the sun governed the earth again, mist-chasing, flower-opening, bird-rousing, ghost-driving, spirit-shepherding back out the various gates of sleep. ~ Mary Butts

Every day he woke to the desire to take the world by the throat, and choke it. He had no illusion that the world wanted to be saved; still less that it was ready to be saved by him. Ready! - it was punching at him with agonizing blows, to be rid of him, once and for all. He woke up. Even that was not true now. It had been true once, but now the world was getting over any slight alarm he might have caused it. It was leaving him alone, to realise the wounds it had given him. Sometimes it was even tolerant and trying to patch him up. ~ Mary Butts

The things you hate are only your body being knocked about by phenomena ~ Mary Butts

Nature has a counterpart, a representation of every interior mood and obscure perception of man. ~ Mary Butts

I never met a man half so true as a dog. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

Without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards, the friendship of a separated friend is not a social reality. It has no existence without the rites of friendship. Social rituals create a reality which would be nothing without them. It is not too much to say that ritual is more to society than words are to thought. For it is very possible to know something and then find words for it. But it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts. ~ Mary Douglas

But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. ~ Mary Beth Smith

There's no love in you because there's no sex in you. Sex is light and fertility and life and communication! You only have this ... pornography and submission and blackness and death! You're like a faggot! ~ Mary Gaitskill

My mind seeks the tidiness of a question answered. An agenda complete. A box checked. That's what harmony feels like in my brain. Wasted time and wrong answers disrupt that harmony like an off-key instrument making a dissonant clang in a musician's ears. ~ Mary Laura Philpott

Balance happens when I invite it to happen with my intentional actions and my guided perspective. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Maybe your right. Maybe I should blame myself… Who the hell needs that? ~ Nana Mary Roseanne

H.L. Mencken once said that Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time. As she looked down at her dead child, Mary Beth realized that the unbearable sense of loss she felt was tempered by gratitude and a kind of relief. There would be no more boyfriends now, no more weekend parties. Ruby would remain pure forever, and for that her mother was deeply grateful. Catholicism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be having a good time ... with your daughter. ~ Anna Quindlen

The time for thinkers has come. ~ Mary Baker Eddy

Adventure comes with no guarantees or promises. Risk and reward are conjoined twins - and that's why my favorite piece of advice needs translation but no disclaimers: Fortes fortuna juvat. 'Fortune favors the brave,' the ancient Roman dramatist Terrence declared. In other words, there are many good reasons not to toss your life up in the air and see how it lands. Just don't let fear be one of them. ~ Mary South

Sticking his fists against his side, he glared at her. "I've had enough," he announced. "The only safe place for you is my house - my home and my bed."

Whether it was the fist to his nose or the bright flush of red on her cheeks, he could not say. One thing finally got through. This time, he was the idiot. ~ Mary Brock Jones

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, But spare his "Highland Mary!" ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Almost every one of the great religions of the world has made special provisions for them, and the woman who has preferred a celibate to a domestic life has been able to occupy a position of honor and usefulness. ~ Mary Livermore

tries to make a pass at you, you ~ Mary Higgins Clark

GEORGE AND MARLEE UP IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! We stopped. There was a kid over there, standing by a hackberry bush. I'd never seen him before, not at Mary Day or anywhere else. He wasn't but four and a half feet tall, and stocky. He had on gray shorts that went down all the way to his knees, and a green sweater with orange stripes. It was rounded out up top with little boy-tits and a poochy belly underneath. He had a beanie on his head, the stupid kind with a plastic propeller. His ~ Stephen King

A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly. ~ Mary Wortley Montagu

Internet TV is replacing linear TV. ~ Mary Meeker

Lo, and I have discovered
how soft bloom
turns to green fruit,
which turns to sweet fruit.
Lo, and I have discovered
all winds blow cold
at last,
and the leaves,
so pretty, so many,
vanish
in the great, black
packet of time ~ Mary Oliver

When the uncapped potential of a student meets the liberating art of a teacher, a miracle unfolds. ~ Mary Hatwood Futrell

Un-forgiveness is like cancer; it eats you from the inside out. ~ Mary Johnson

"There is no analysis here," the most brutal of them wrote. Now I wonder if my papers lacked critical thought, or if it was really more about my inability/refusal to write in the convoluted style that they wanted me to. I remember the initial shock upon reading my peers' papers. I seriously could not understand them, and I couldn't understand why the writing had to be so unclear in order to be considered smart. ~ Mary J. Miller

I'm starting to feel like so much of rock music is derivative and boring. ~ Mary Timony

The trouble with human beings is not really that they love themselves too much; they ought to love themselves more. The trouble is simply that they don't love others enough.
The End of Anthropocentrism? ~ Mary Midgley

I'd already made the decision before I'd even read it-just because it was John Sayles. Then when I read it, the themes were actually themes that have been a big part of my life. ~ Mary Steenburgen

I wake up to profound perspective that allows me to celebrate the choices of my moments, of my life. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

No, no, no. Dick Cheney forbade me to waste time on his image. I would have liked to have done more. ~ Mary Matalin

When you buy my books, you kind of know what you're in for. It's kind of self-selecting. If you have a delicate sensibility, and you're easily grossed out, you probably will never read one of my books. ~ Mary Roach

Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. ~ Mary Shelley

Always stay close to this Heavenly Mother, because she is the sea to be crossed to reach the shores of Eternal Splendour. ~ Pio Of Pietrelcina

And sometimes men fail, I answered silently. Sometimes they don't forgive. Sometimes what you see is only the bright surface of something cold and deep. ~ Elizabeth Cunningham

Your glass will not do you half so much service as a serious reflection on your own minds. ~ Mary Astell